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POEMS AND TALES 

BY 

EDGAR ALLAN POE 

M 
EDITED BY 

HARRY GILBERT PAUL, Ph.D. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



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The text here followed is that of Professor James A. 
Harrison's authoritative " Virginia Edition " of the 
Works of Edgar Allan Poe; it is used by the kind per- 
mission of the publishers, T. Y. Crowell and Company. 



Copyright, 1918, 

By D. C. Heath & Co. 

1d8 



MAY 18 1918 
)CI,A499036 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

POEMS 

Sonnet — to Science i 

Romance i 

To Helen 2 

Iseafel 3 

The City in the Sea 4 

Lenore 6 

Hymn 7 

To One in Paradise 8 

Dream-Land 8 

EuLALiE — A Song 10 

The Raven 11 

Ulalume 15 

To My Mother . 18 

Annabel Lee 19 

The Bells 20 

Eldorado ~ 24 

TALES 

Shadow — A Parable 25 

The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion 28 

Eleonora 35 

Ligeia 42 

The Fall of the House of Usher 60 

The Tell-Tale Heart 81 

The Masque of the Red Death 87 

The Pit and the Pendulum 94 

A Descent into the Maelstrom in 

The Gold-Bug 130 

The Purloined Letter 170 

The Cask of Amontillado 191 

Notes and Questions 199 

Bibliography 209 

Glossary 211 



INTRODUCTION 

Life of Poe 

The year 1809 marked the birth of many children destined to 
become famous, including in England Gladstone, Darwin, and Ten- 
nyson, and in America, Lincoln, Holmes, and Poe. The briefest 
and saddest among the lives of these children of genius was that 
of Edgar Allan Poe, which began in Boston on January igth. 
His father was the son of a Revolutionary patriot. General David 
Poe, whom Lafayette honored by kissing the turf on his grave and 
saying, "Here rests a noble heart." This stern old aristocrat of 
Baltimore disowned his son, who not only left his law books for 
the stage, but also married a little English actress, Elizabeth Arnold. 
Edgar was the second of the three children born to this couple as 
their small troupe made its way from town to town along the At- 
lantic coast. Soon the father disappeared from the stage, and the 
brave little mother, stricken with consumption, fought hard to gain 
bread for her young family. Finally, late in November, 181 1, the 
following card appeared in a Richmond newspaper: 

"On this night Mrs. Poe, lingering on a bed of disease and surrounded 
by her children, asks your assistance, and asks it, perhaps, for the last time. 
The generosity of a Richmond audience can need no other appeal." 

A week later the mother died, and the three children were thrown 
upon the charity of relatives and friends. Mrs. John Allan, the 
wife of a Richmond tobacco merchant, was attracted by the dark- 
eyed, curly-haired Edgar and took the little waif into her home. 
When the lad was six, the Allans went to England on a business 
venture and placed him in a school at Stoke-Newington, a London 
suburb. Years later, in his tale of William Wilson, Poe pictured this 
old, irregular building, with its thick walls, its low ceihngs, and 
winding passages. Here he passed five years, conjugating Latin 
verbs, learning French, and spending more pocket-money than he 
should. In 1820 he returned to Richmond with the Allans, and 
soon was one of the leaders in his school, equally ready to declaim, 



VI EDGAR ALLAN POE 

take part in a play, run a race, or put on the boxing-gloves. Once 
he swam six miles against a strong current in the James River. But 
this proud, moody boy Uved largely in his land of dreams and made 
but few friends. Among these few, however, was the mother of one 
of his schoolmates, Mrs. Jane Standard, who so won his heart that 
after her death he is said to have haunted her grave at night for 
months. Early in 1826 Poe entered the University of Virginia, 
recently founded by Thomas Jefferson, where he frequented the li- 
brary, the card-table and punch-bowl, and the lonely mountain 
paths. At the close of the year he returned to Richmond with 
honors in Latin and French and with some large gambling debts 
which his foster-father refused to pay. Set at work in Mr. Allan's 
office, the youth of eighteen soon rebelled and ran away to Boston, 
where he published in 1827 a thin book of forty pages entitled Tamer- 
lane and Other Poems, By a Bostonian. To-day this small sheaf of 
verse sells for many times its weight in gold. 

No one has yet been able to trace Poe in all his wanderings during 
these years. We are sure, however, that he enlisted as a private 
under the name of Edgar A. Perry, thus, like Coleridge in a similar 
case, retaining his own initials. He served so faithfully at Fort 
Moultrie, near Charleston, and later at Fortress Monroe, that he 
was made a sergeant-major. By the fatal illness of Mrs. Allan, Poe 
was partly reconciled to his foster-father, who secured his release 
from the army and helped gain him a cadetship at West Point. 
Before entering the Academy the young soldier published an en- 
larged edition of his verse, Al Aaraf, Tamerlane and Other Poems, 
1829. The melody of these strange poems puzzled the few critics 
who noticed them. At West Point, Poe found the strict disciphne so 
little to his liking that, after six months, he deliberately provoked 
his own expulsion. Soon after leaving, he dedicated to the cadets 
his third volume, Poems, 183 1, containing To Helen, Israfel, and 
Lenore, which show that at twenty-two he had found himself as a 
poet. 

We catch our next glimpse of Poe in Baltimore, half-starved at 
the hard task of earning his bread by his pen. his first bit of fortune 
coming as a hundred dollar prize which he won from the Baltimore 
Visiter with his story, A MS. Found in a Bottle. One of the judges 
of the contest, John P. Kennedy, also helped him to secure a place 



INTRODUCTION VU 

as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger at Richmond. Here, 
for the next year and a half, Poe did four men's work as editor, 
proof reader, story writer, and critic; the subscription list lengthened 
from seven hundred to five thousand names; and the nation turned 
to hsten to this clever young critic. At this time he married his 
pretty child-cousin, Virginia Clem, and brought her and her mother 
to hve in Richmond. 

But disaster dogged his steps. In January, 1836, he lost his po- 
sition with the Messenger, and after trying jn vain to establish him- 
self in New York, he moved to Philadelphia, then, the magazine 
center of the nation. The following six years, 1838-1844, found 
Poe at his best as a critic and a short-story writer. During this 
period appeared his fine criticism of Hawthorne and Tennyson and 
such masterpieces of the short story as The Fall of the House of 
Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Purloined Letter, and his 
best-known story. The Gold-Bug, which won another hundred dol- 
lar prize. As editor of The Gentleman's Magazine and afterward 
of Graham's he did splendid service. For the latter he gained a 
name of perhaps the leading literary journal of the nation and in- 
creased the circulation from five thousand to thirty-five thousand. 
His ability to decipher secret messages, or cryptograms, aroused a 
wide interest; and his prediction of the plot of Barnaby Rudge, after 
the first chapters had appeared, caused Dickens to ask if he was 
the devil. 

Poe's industry and energy, his originality and versatility, made him 
one of the best editors of the day. Unfortunately, however, he was 
a child of impulse, always yielding to the "Imp of the Perverse" 
which stood at his elbow and tumbled down what he had built 
with such skill and care. He was tactless and touchy, impatient 
of restraint, dissatisfied with the present, and ever seeking some land 
of heart's desire. Furthermore, he fought a losing fight with drink 
and drugs. A single glass of liquor would work like poison in his 
veins and set his brain on fire. He paid dearly for these weaknesses 
and indulgence, not only in the loss of good positions but also in 
health and strength. 

In 1844 Poe made a fresh start in New York, where at first he found 
a small market and poor pay for his wares. When he was too ill 
to leave the house, his tall, gaunt mother-in-law, one of nature's 



Vm EDGAR ALLAN POE 

noblewomen, went uncomplainingly from publisher to publisher, 
trying to sell some story for which many present-day magazines 
would gladly give more than Poe sometimes received for whole 
years of toil. Editors valued his work more highly after the pub- 
lication of The Raven in 1845 ^^^ won him a wide name and fame 
as a poet; and in that same year appeared a volume of his Tales 
and another of his verse. But he never gained any very steady or 
profitable position; he never escaped the pinch of poverty; and when 
finally he secured control of the Broadway Journal, and thus realized 
his dream of a magazine of his own, he lacked the capital to tide it 
over the first few months. 

In 1846 the Uttle family moved out to a cottage among the cherry 
trees in Fordham, a village now swept away by the tide of the city, 
in the vain hope that a purer air might benefit the young wife, 
Virginia. For years she had lived near the brink of death; and as 
the dreaded consumption tightened its final grip upon her, Poe knew 
the fullest measure of bitterness and despair. Here is a picture 
of the bed of suffering left us by one who went to her aid: 

"There was no clothing on the bed, which was only straw, but the snow- 
white counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold, and the sick lady 
had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. 
She lay on a straw bed, wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large 
tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious of 
her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the sufferer's only means 
of warmth, except as her husband held her hands and her mother her feet. " 

After her death in 1847, Poe battled with a long, hard fever which 
left him shattered both in body and in spirit. Over the remainder 
of his ill-starred life we need not hnger. Haggard and careworn, 
he produced little abiding work except such short poems as Ulalume, 
Annabel Lee, and The Bells. He tried in vain to estabhsh a maga- 
zine of his own; he lectured and read his verse in public. His 
nature seemed to demand the sympathy and encouragement of 
women; and some of those whose friendship and love he sought 
were, after his death, his strongest champions. In 1849 he visited 
Richmond and left for the North carrying the receipts from a lecture 
before an audience of generous friends. No one knows exactly what 
happened to him at Baltimore, where he was found dazed, and pos- 
sibly drugged; but it is generally believed that at the election there 



INTRODUCTION IX 

he had been carried from booth to booth and used as a repeater. 
He died at the Washington Hospital, in Baltimore, October 7, 1849. 

"There is one spot in America," said Tennyson, "which I should 
like to visit, viz., the long-neglected spot in Baltimore where the 
greatest American genius li^s buried. In my opinion he is the 
literary glory of America." 

Poe was scarcely in his grave when a bitter debate arose concerning 
his life and writings, the echoes from which may still at times be 
heard. To-day, however, certain phases of his character seem fairly 
clear. First, he was a dreamer of dreams whose imagination worked 
freely in a charnel land of tombs, far from the happy haunts of men. 
"To dream," he wrote, "has been the business of my life." Again, 
he was blessed, or cursed, with a morbidly acute nervous system, as 
responsive to ev^ery impression as is a delicate thermometer to the 
slightest change in temperature. i\ll his senses were keenly alive. 
"I have often thought," he once said, "that I could hear the sound 
of the darkness as it stole over the horizon." But Poe was more 
than a dreamer and a visionary, for he was gifted with one of the 
keenest minds America has ever known. He was quick to analyze 
these moods and subject them so thoroughly to his intellect that his 
passion seemed less of the heart than of the head. His range of 
intellectual interests was remarkably wide: mathematics, astronomy, 
and architecture; landscape gardening and furniture; physical and 
mental science; theories of literary style and prosody; curious read- 
ing and secret writing — such are the many subjects that filled his 
busy brain. He was possessed of an abnormal curiosity that throve 
upon the extravagant, the unreal, the mysterious, and the puzzling. 
His mind loved to dwell in the regions of the unknown if not the 
unknowable. In a word, Poe was not a learned man, a scholar, 
but a pioneer on the frontiers of knowledge, who sent his thoughts 
out along the boundaries that divide life and death as freely as he 
sent them to the borderland where verse passes into music. 



His Work and its Characteristics 

What has just been said of Poe as a pioneer should help us in 
appreciating his threefold work as (i) a critic, (2) a poet, and (3) 
a writer of tales. To-day the emphasis has shifted; but during the 



X EDGAR Allan poe 

greater part of his life he was known as an original, vigorous, and 
pungent critic. The sheer power of his keen mind did much to 
offset his lack of scholarship and the hurried pressure under which 
he usually wrote. He was not without his faults and weaknesses; 
for example, he could seldom deal severely with the writings of a 
woman, and how thoroughly he was possessed of a mania for dis- 
covering literary thefts may be seen in his attacks upon "Mr. Long- 
fellow and Other Plagiarists." Nevertheless, after every allowance 
has been made, Poe still deserves honor as the first important Amer- 
ican critic. He was quick to discern genuine literary power and was 
among the first to welcome Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Dickens, 
Lowell, and Hawthorne. His longer essays, such as The Poetic Prin- 
ciple and The Philosophy of Composition, stand as modest milestones 
along the path of literary theory, and have pointed the way for 
many writers both in America and in Europe. Furthermore, since 
Poe strove to practice what he preached, his criticisms are valuable 
in helping us understand his own prose and verse. 

Poe's claitn to remembrance as a poet rests on some ten or twelve 
poems written either at the beginning or near the close of his literary 
career. During his busy middle life he produced practically no 
verse, for poetry was his passion, he said, "and as such to be held 
in reverence." His early verse, with its parade of dark-browed 
sorrow and a mysterious past, bears so plainly the stamp of Byron 
that we might well ascribe the following lines to the English bard 
rather than to'Poe, should we find them detached: • 

"The happiest day — the happiest hour 
My sered and blighted heart hath known, 
The highest hope of pride and power, 
I feel hath flown." 

After Poe had outgrown his Byronism, he learned from Coleridge 
much about the witchery of musical words. We must be careful, 
however, not to overestimate this influence, for Poe's verse has an 
elfin tone of its own and strikes a unique, distinctive note in poetry. 
Here, again, he was a pioneer; but "pioneer" does not suggest his 
nice craftsmanship, his fine command of his art. No other American 
poet chiseled and polished his work so carefully, or toiled with such 
skill and pains till the perfect poem emerged. Poe wrought his 



INTRODUCTION XI 

verse largely in accord with certain theories he had evolved; con- 
sequently, if we would understand his aims and methods of work, 
we must study these theories. 

His definition of poetry as "the rhythmical creation of beauty" 
emphasizes his hunger and thirst for a loveliness beyond that of 
this earth. Poe was haunted by visions of beauty, exalting the soul 
and granting it glimpses of infinite beauty. To elevate the soul with 
these supernal visions of lovehness, he maintained, is the great pur- 
pose of poetry. Beauty appeals to the soul, just as duty appeals 
to the conscience, and truth to the reason. Such a conception 
helps us to understand why Poe's poetry is usually as free from any 
message or any moral purpose as it is from any impure suggestion. 

But while Poe thus allowed little place for duty or truth, he ever 
emphasized the close relation of beauty and sorrow. " Let me remind 
you," he urged, "that, how or why we know not, this certain taint 
of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations 
of beauty." These ghmpses of divine loveliness, this "light that 
never was on sea or land," deepened Poe's perception of man's 
weakness and mortality. Consequently, he scarcely ever wrote a 
happy poem. His verse is the home of Regret and Despair, of Mel- 
ancholy and Remorse, where Beauty walks side by side with Death. 

Images of melancholy beauty wedded to musical verse — such 
was Poe's conception of poetry; and few have ever equaled him in 
evoking the charm and melody lurking in words. His verse Hes 
on the borderland where poetry passes into music; it offers us but 
little truth that appeals to the intellect; but it appeals strongly to 
our emotion and allures us with its weird, unearthly melodies. 
Much in the manner of a skillful musician, Poe presents his theme, 
repeats it, varies it, and returns to it till he holds us in his spell. 
Like Coleridge's Wedding Guest, we "cannot choose but hear." 

Poe recognized clearly that such moods are transient, and that 
the spell is short-lived; consequently, he maintained that all true 
poetry must be brief, and that a long poem is a contradiction of 
terms. How thoroughly he carried this beHef into practice may be 
judged from the fact that the longest of his better poems, The 
Raven, scarcely exceeds one hundred lines. 

Such poetry further resembles music in that it works through its 
power of suggestion, and of this art Poe was a master. Some- 



XU EDGAR ALLAN POE 

times he charms us with the melody of beautiful cadences, as in the 
following: 

'Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 
On its roof did float and flow, 
(This — all this — was in the olden 
Time long ago.) " 

Again, he condenses into a phrase all the power of appeal in some 
splendid, bygone age: 

"The glory that was Greece 
And the grandeur that was Rome." 

At times this suggestive power is felt in some undercurrent of mean- 
ing, some symbolism, which adds to the melody a force and charm 
like that of an accompaniment in music. Such, for example, is 
the suggestion of the overthrow of a human mind in The Haunted 
Palace. 

Poe's passion for the perfect union of word and image, of melody 
and emotion, led him to plan and poHsh his verse with loving patience. 
He chose his phrases with cunning; or he coined new words of beauty 
and suggestive power — "Weir," "Auber," "Nicean," "Ulalume." 
He called to his aid every poetic device of alliteration and assonance, 
rhyme and rhythm, refrain and repetend, and used them aptly in 
developing his chosen mood or tone. He fitted part to part with 
nicest care, worked deftly and surely toward his climax, and invari- 
ably brought his verse to a fitting close. He is our greatest crafts- 
man in verse. 

When we turn to the third class of Poe's work, his prose tales, we 
can trace the same skill and care that mark his verse. We can again 
discern that love of dreaming, curbed by the keen intellect; and 
once more we notice that the themes are remote from the ordinary 
concerns of men. But we also discover that if poetry was his passion, 
prose was his pot-boiler and bread-winner, — that many of his 
stories were written to keep the wolf from the door. Of his sixty 
or seventy tales less than a third hold a place among our best stories. 
These better tales may be divided into three fairly distinct classes: 
(i) Stories of Mystery and Terror, intended to thrill us, such as 
The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The 
Masque of the Red Death; (2) Analytical or Detective Stories, which 



INTRODUCTION Xlll 

interest us in the solution of a puzzle, as The Purloined Letter and 
The Gold-Bug; (3) Poetic Prose Tales, presenting novel combinations 
of beauty, as Eleonora and The Oval Portrait. 

Most of these tales were constructed in keeping with his belief 
that every element in a story — description, plot, character portrayal, 
and style — should be made subordinate and subservient to the 
effect as a whole. Poe's own statement of his conception is as 
follows : 

"A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not 
fashioned thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived 
a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such 
incidents — he then combines such events as may best aid him in establish- 
ing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the 
outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole 
composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct 
or indirect, is not to the one preestablished design. And by such means, 
with such skill and care, a picture is at length painted which leaves on the 
mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art the sense of fullest 
satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, be- 
cause undisturbed." 

Poe's definition and practice of the short story mark a distinct 
advance in the development of that form and have given it a direc- 
tion which all subsequent theorizing has followed. His influence 
may also be traced in the tales of Stevienson and Kipling, of Maupas- 
sant and Doyle. Here, again, he was a pioneer. 

The union of Poe's theory with his practice finds good illustration 
in his story The Black Cat, whereby he strove deliberately to evoke 
a shudder of horror and determined that a murder offered the best 
subject for his purpose. The murder of a wife by her husband was 
chosen to deepen the horror; and then Poe worked from one terrible 
detail to another up to the last touch in depicting the murderer as 
telling the story on the night before his execution. 

In devising his total impression Poe recognized the worth of a 
well-selected setting. The scenes of his detective stories gain an 
added semblance of truth by being laid in some such definite place 
as Charleston or Paris; but there is really little local color. In 
his tales of mystery and horror the setting occasionally becomes 
almost as important as the actors and the action. Here Poe chooses 
a setting detached from definite time and place; and though he 



XIV EDGAR ALLAN POE 

may talk of castles by the Rhine, Venetian palaces, and English 
abbeys, we know that these are built in one country — the realm 
of his dreams. Poe-land is a dim, gloomy, far-oflf country, where 
the late autumn is the single season, where the winds moan through 
black groves of cypress and time-eaten towers and across open graves. 
Through the small, high windows of his crumbling castles struggles 
a dim light; it falls upon heavy black draperies, embroidered with 
grotesque figures, and upon fantastic gold censers which load the 
air with their heavy perfume. We are soon glad to escape to some 
fresher, purer atmosphere; but we admire the magician who has thus 
led our imagination captive down through the valley of the shadow 
of death. 

In his effort to secure a maximum of effect in a minimum of space 
Poe usually devised an opening sentence that would both set the 
tone of his story and attract attention like an electric bell. When he 
wishes to create a mood or an atmosphere, as in his tales of mystery 
and horror, he lingers and gradually draws us under his spell by every 
power of suggestion — dwelling upon some emotion, appealing to 
our five senses, and even intensifying the mood through the order 
and cadence of his words and phrases. Never for a moment does he 
forget the effect he would produce upon his reader. He lures us 
into surrendering for a time our disbelief, and then holds us in the 
web of his novel and daring conceptions. He realizes that we can- 
not long be held, so most of his stories are short; he knows that he 
must give these unique fancies every appearance of truth, so he uses 
a minute realism, which, as Lowell puts it, "does not leave a pin or 
a button unnoticed. " 

In his analytical or detective stories, however, he pays less atten- 
tion to tone or atmosphere. Here he invariably presents us with 
some mystery or puzzle, solves it, and then explains the steps in the 
solution. But whatever the kind of tale, when once he has struck 
off along the path of his plot to his predetermined goal, he steadily 
increases the tension and interest. He is a past master in using 
suspense and surprise; and though he sometimes lingers, tempted 
by some favorite theme, he usually sweeps to a rapid ending in a 
series of short, ringing phrases. We do not easily forget Poe's 
stories, largely because these vivid conclusions clinch them in our 
memories. 



INTRODUCTION XV 

This brilliant mastery in his management of plot makes more 
noticeable his deficiencies in character-portrayal. Such a weakness 
is not surprising when we recall that Poe was a soul that dwelt apart, 
misunderstood by his fellows, and in turn misunderstanding them. 
Hence his characters are all the children of his dreams, or perhaps 
they might better be described as Poe himself playing many parts. 
Almost always these tales are told in the first person; and despite 
their diversity, they seem the adventures of one man displaying some 
phase of Poe's own nature. At times, as in A MS. Found in a 
Bottle and in The Fall of the House of Usher, he has even endowed his 
heroes with his physical appearance — the dark hair, the full massive 
brow, and the weak chin. Frequently his hero is an ingenious man, 
fond of mental analysis, quick to solve a puzzle, to read secret 
writings, or to unravel the mystery of a crime. Again, he is a 
dreamer, usually a man of rank and of wealth, whom Poe knew 
only in the castles of his fancy. Many of his heroes are men of 
wonderfully acute sensibilities, haunted by impulse, plagued by fear, 
and dwelling in the borderland between sanity and madness. All in 
all they are far from a sane, healthy company; and there is scarcely 
one whom we should choose as a companion or friend. They are as 
isolated from the usual life of the world as Robinson Crusoe on his 
desert island; our interest in them ceases with the story, and they 
have no existence apart from it. His women are shadowy creatures, 
with melodious names, beautiful of body and often noble of mind, 
but touched by the finger of death. They, too, dwell far from the 
world of flesh and blood; they are the creations of his reveries, the 
daughters of his mystic dreams. 

When we turn to examine Poe's style, we are impressed by the 
difference between the bald, meager sentences of his hurried stories 
and the finished work of his better tales. In the latter he fitted his 
phrases to gain the best emphasis and rhythm; he made cunning use 
of questions and exclamations; and he even employed his punctu- 
ation to give just the right color and tone to his narrative. His 
store of words for expressing horror, grief, and every morbid passion 
of the mind has seldom been equaled; and he is a master in repeat- 
ing a word till it drives its way home to the nerves of the reader. 

In his poetical tales we discover many of the characteristics that 
mark his verse — the vague symbolism, the brevity, the slow move- 



XVI EDGAR ALLAN POE 

ment, repetition and repetend, musical cadence, and skillful allit- 
eration. Here he has woven into his diction many quaint old words, 
many simple but suggestive monosyllables, many phrases that re- 
call the prophets of Israel. In this domain lying between prose and 
poetry Poe holds by right of discovery and conquest a sure kingdom. 
His excellence, in both prose and verse, was widely recognized 
in Europe many years before it had been commonly acknowledged 
in America. Continental critics have long regarded him as our 
greatest, if not our single, literary genius. Here at home, as the 
prejudices against his life and work have subsided, Americans have 
come to regard his writings with ever-increasing admiration. Year 
by year his tales and poems are more widely read and more highly 
valued. They are standing well that supreme test of literature — 
the test of time; and to-day they seem safely enrolled in that small 
company of books which the world will "not wiUingly let die." 



POE'S POEMS AND TALES 



POEMS 
SONNET — TO SCIENCE 

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! 

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. 
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, 

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? 
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, 

Who would not leave him in his wandering 
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, 

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? 
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? 

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 
To seek a shelter in some happier star? 

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, 
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me 
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? 

ROMANCE 

Romance, who loves to nod and sing. 
With drowsy head and folded wing. 
Among the green leaves as they shake 
Far down within some shadowy lake. 
To me a painted paroquet 
Hath been — a most familiar bird — 
Taught me my alphabet to say — 
To lisp my very earliest word 
While in the wild wood I did lie, 
A child — with a most knowing eye. 



POE'S POEMS 

Of late, eternal Condor years 
So shake the very Heaven on high 
With tumult as they thunder by, 
I have no time for idle cares 
Through gazing on the unquiet sky. 
And when an hour with calmer wings 
Its down upon my spirit flings — 
That Httle time with lyre and rhyme 
To while away — forbidden things! 
My heart would feel to be a crime 
Unless it trembled with the strings. 



TO HELEN 

Helen, thy beauty is to me 

Like those Nicean barks of yore, 

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea. 
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore 
To his own native shore. 

On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
To the glory that was Greece, 
And the grandeur that was Rome. 

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche 
How statue-Hke I see thee stand. 

The agate lamp within thy hand! 
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which 
Are Holy Land! 



ISRAFEL 3 

ISRAFELi 

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell 

"Whose heart-strings are a lute;" 
None sing so wildly well 
As the angel Israfel, 
And the giddy stars (so legends tell) 
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell 

Of his voice, all mute. 

Tottering above 

In her highest noon, 

The enamoured moon 
Blushes with love, 

While, to listen, the red levin 

(With the rapid Pleiads, even, 

Which were seven,) 

Pauses in Heaven. 

And they say (the starry choir 

And the other listening things) 
That Israfeh's fire 
Is owing to that lyre 

By which he sits and sings — i 

The trembling living wire 

Of those unusual strings. 

But the skies that angel trod. 

Where deep thoughts are a duty — 
Where Love's a grown-up God — 
Where the Houri glances are 

Imbued with all the beauty 
Which we worship in a star. 

1 And the angel Israfel, [whose heart-strings are a lute, and] who has the 
sweetest voice of all God's creatures. — Koran. 



POE S POEMS 

Therefore, thou art not wrong, 

IsrafeU, who despisest 
An unimpassioned song; 
To thee the laurels belong, 

Best bard, because the wisest! 
Merrily Hve, and long! 

The ecstasies above 

With thy burning measures suit — 
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, 

With the fervor of thy lute — 

Well may the stars be mute! 

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this 
Is a world of sweets and sours; 
Our flowers are merely — flowers. 

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss 
Is the sunshine of ours. 

If I could dwell 
Where Israfel 

Hath dwelt, and he where I, 
He might not sing so wildly well 

A mortal melody. 
While a bolder note than this might swell 

From my lyre within the sky. 



THE CITY IN THE SEA 

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne 

In a strange city lying alone 

Far down within the dim West, 

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best 

Have gone to their eternal rest. 



THE CITY IN THE SEA 

There shrines and palaces and towers 
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) 
Resemble nothing that is ours. 
Around, by lifting winds forgot, 
Resignedly beneath the sky 
The melancholy waters He. 

No rays from the holy heaven come down 
On the long night-time of that town; 
But light from out the lurid sea 
Streams up the turrets silently — 
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free — 
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls — 
Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls — 
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers 
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers — 
Up many and many a marvellous shrine 
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine 
The viol, the violet, and the vine. 
Resignedly beneath the sky 
The melancholy waters lie. 
So blend the turrets and shadows there 
That all seem pendulous in air. 
While from a proud tower in the town 
Death looks gigantically down. 

There open fanes and gaping graves 
Yawn level with the luminous waves 
But not the riches there that He 
In each idol's diamond eye — 
Not the gayly- jewelled dead 
Tempt the waters from their bed; 
For no ripples curl, alas! 
Along that wilderness of glass — 



6 POE'S POEMS 

No swellings tell that winds may be 
Upon some far-off happier sea — 
No heavings hint that winds have been 
On seas less hideously serene. 

But lo, a stir is in the air! 
The wave — there is a movement there! 
As if the towers had thrust aside, 
In slightly sinking, the dull tide — 
As if their tops had feebly given 
A void within the filmy Heaven. 
The waves have now a redder glow — 
The hours are breathing faint and low — 
And when, amid no earthly moans, 
Down, down that town shall settle hence, 
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, 
Shall do it reverence. 

LENORE 

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever! 
Let the bell toll! — a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; 
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear? — weep now or never more! 
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! > 
Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! — 
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young — 
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young. 

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her 

pride. 
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her — that she 

died! 
How shall the ritual, then, be read? — the requiem how be sung 
By you — by yours, the evil eye, — by yours, the slanderous 

tongue 
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?" 



HYMN 7 

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song 
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong! 
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew 

beside, 
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy 

bride — 
For her, the fair and dehonnaire, that now so lowly lies, 
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes — 
The life still there upon her hair — the death upon her eyes. 

" Avaunt! — avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is 

riven — 
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven — 
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of 

Heaven, 
Let no bell toll then! — lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth, 
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned 

Earth! — 
And I! — to-night my heart is Hght! No dirge will I upraise, 
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days! " 



HYMN 

At morn — at noon — at twilight dim 
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! 
In joy and wo — in good and ill — 
Mother of God, be with me still ! 
When the Hours flew brightly by. 
And not a cloud obscured the sky. 
My soul, lest it should truant be. 
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee; 
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast 
Darkly my Present and my Past, 
Let my Future radiant shine 
With sweet hopes of thee and thine! 



POE S POEMS 

TO ONE IN PARADISE 

Thou wast all that to me, love, 
For which my soul did pine — 

A green isle in the sea, love, 
A fountain and a shrine, 

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, 
And all the flowers were mine. 

Ah, dream too bright to last! 

Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise 
But to be overcast! 

A voice from out the Future cries, 
"On! on!" — but o'er the Past 

(Dim gulf !) my spirit hovering lies 
Mute, motionless, aghast! 

For, alas! alas! with me 

The light of Life is o'er! 
"No more — no more — no more — " 
(Such language holds the solemn sea 

To the sands upon the shore) 
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree. 

Or the stricken eagle soar! 

And all my days are trances, 

And all my nightly dreams 
Are where thy grey eye glances. 

And where thy footstep gleams — 
In what ethereal dances. 

By what eternal streams. 

DREAM-LAND 

By a route obscure and lonely, 
Haunted by ill angels only, 
Where an Eidolon, named Night, 
On a black throne reigns upright. 



DREAM-LAND 

I have reached these lands but newly 
From an ultimate dim Thule — 
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, 
Out of Space — out of Time. 

Bottomless vales and boundless floods, 
And chasms, and caves and Titan woods, 
With forms that no man can discover 
For the tears that drip all over; 
Mountains toppling evermore 
Into seas without a shore; 
Seas that restlessly aspire. 
Surging, unto skies of fire; 
Lakes that endlessly outspread 
Their lone waters — lone and dead, — 
Their still waters — still and chilly 
With the snows of the lolling lily. 

By the lakes that thus outspread 
Their lone waters, lone and dead, — 
Their sad waters, sad and chilly 
With the snows of the lolling lily, — 
By the mountains — near the river 
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, — 
By the grey woods, — by the swamp 
Where the toad and the newt encamp, — 
By the dismal tarns and pools 
Where dwell the Ghouls, — 
By each spot the most unholy — 
In each nook most melancholy, — 
There the traveller meets, aghast. 
Sheeted Memories of the Past — 
Shrouded forms that start and sigh 
As they pass the wanderer by — 
White-robed forms of friends long given. 
In agony, to the Earth — and Heaven. 



lO POE S POEMS 

For the heart whose woes are legion 
'T is a peaceful, soothing region — 
For the spirit that walks in shadow 
' T is — oh 't is an Eldorado! 
But the traveller, traveUing through it, 
May not — dare not openly view it; 
Never its mysteries are exposed 
To the weak human eye unclosed; 
So wills its King, who hath forbid 
The upUfting of the fringed lid; 
And thus the sad Soul that here passes 
Beholds it but through darkened glasses. 

By a route obscure and lonely. 
Haunted by ill angels only. 
Where an Eidolon, named Night, 
On a black throne reigns upright, 
I have wandered home but newly 
From this ultimate dim Thule. 

EULALIE — A SONG 

I DWELT alone 

In a world of moan, 
And my soul was a stagnant tide. 
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride — 
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiUng bride. 

Ah, less — less bright 
The stars of the night 
Than the eyes of the radiant girl! 
And never a flake 
That the vapor can make 
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl, 
Can vie with the modest Eulahe's most unregarded curl — 
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulahe's most humble and 
careless curl. 



THE RAVEN II 

Now Doubt — now Pain 
Come never again, 
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh, 
And all day long 
Shines, bright and strong, 
Astarte within the sky, 
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye — 
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye. 

THE RAVEN 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and 

weary. 
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — 
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
*"Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber 

door — 

Only this and nothing more." 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; 

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 

Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow 

From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost 
Lenore — 

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Le- 
nore — 

Nameless here for evermore. 

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; 
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating 
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door — 
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; — 
This it is and nothing more." 



12 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, 
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; 
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, 
That I scarce was sure I heard you" — here I opened wide the 
door; — 

Darkness there and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, 

fearing, 
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream 

before; 
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 

"Lenore!" 
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word 

"Lenore!" 

Merely this and nothing more. 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning. 
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. 
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window 

lattice; 
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery* explore — 
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; — 
'Tis the wind and nothing more!" 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter 
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. 
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or 

stayed he; 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber 

door — 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -^ 
Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 



THE RAVEN I3 

Then this ebony bird beguihng my sad fancy into smiHng, 
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art 

sure no craven, 
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly 

shore — 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian 

shore!" 

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly. 
Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore; 
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being 
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door — 
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber 
door. 

With such name as "Nevermore." 

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only 
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. 
Nothing farther then he uttered — not a feather then he 

fluttered — 
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown 

before — 
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." 
Then the bird said "Nevermore." 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store 
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden 

bore — 
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 



14 poe's poems 

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, 
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust 

and door; 
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore — 
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird 

of yore 

Meant in croaking "Nevermore." 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; 
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, 
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-Hght gloating o'er. 
She shall press, ah, nevermore! 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen 

censer 
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. 
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee — by these angels 

he hath sent thee 
Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore; 
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" 
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." 

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or 

devil! — 
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here 

ashore, 
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted — 
On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore — 
Is there — is there balm in Gilead? — tell me — tell me, I 

implore!" 

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." 



ULALUME 15 

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or 

devil! 
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both 

adore — ^ 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore — 
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Le- 
nore." 

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." 

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, 

upstarting — 
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian 

shore! 
Leave no black plume as a token of that He thy soul hath spoken! 
Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my door ! 
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off 

my door!" 

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; 
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming. 
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on 

the floor; 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
Shall be lifted — nevermore! 



ULALUME 

The skies they were ashen and sober; 
The leaves they were crisped and sere — 
The leaves they were withering and sere; 

It was night in the lonesome October 
Of my most immemorial year; 



i6 



It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 
In the misty mid region of Weir — 

It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, 
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 

Here once, through an alley Titanic, 
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul — 
Of cj^ress, with Psyche, my Soul. 

These were days when my heart was volcanic 
As the scoriae rivers that roll — 
As the lavas that restlessly roll 

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek 
In the ultimate climes of the pole — 

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek 
In the realms of the boreal pole. 

Our talk had been serious and sober. 
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere - 
Our memories were treacherous and sere — 

For we knew not the month was October, 
And we marked not the night of the year — 
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) 

We noted not the dim lake of Auber — 

(Though once we had journeyed down here) — 

Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, 
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 

And now, as the night was senescent 

And star-dials pointed to morn — 

As the star-dials hinted of morn — 
At the end of our path a liquescent 

And nebulous lustre was born. 
Out of which a miraculous crescent 

Arose with a duplicate horn — 
Astarte's bediamoned crescent 

Distinct with its dupHcate horn. 



ULALUME 17 

And I said — "She is warmer than Dian: 

She rolls through an ether of sighs — 

She revels in a region of sighs: 
She has seen that the tears are not dry on 

These cheeks, where the worm never dies 
And has come past the stars of the Lion 

To point us the path to the skies — 

To the Lethean peace of the skies — 
Come up, in despite of the Lion, 

To shine on us with her bright eyes — 
Come up through the lair of the Lion, 

With love in her luminous eyes." 

But Psyche, uphfting her finger, 

Said — " Sadly this star I mistrust — 

Her pallor I strangely mistrust: — 
Oh, hasten! — oh, let us not linger! 

Oh, fly! — let us fly! — for we must." 
In terror she spoke, letting sink her 

Wings until they trailed in the dust — 
In agony sobbed, letting sink her 

Plumes till they trailed in the dust — 

Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. 

I replied — "This is nothing but dreaming: 

Let us on by this tremulous light! 

Let us bathe in this crystalline light! 
Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming 

With Hope and in Beauty to-night: — 

See! — it flickers up the sky through the night! 
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming. 

And be sure it will lead us aright — 
We safely may trust to a gleaming 

That cannot but guide us aright. 

Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night." 



1 8 poe's poems 

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed hep, 
And tempted her out of her gloom — 
And conquered her scruples and gloom; 

And we passed to the end of the vista, 
But were stopped by the door of a tomb — 
By the door of a legended tomb; 

And I said — " What is written, sweet sister, 
On the door of this legended tomb? " 
She replied — " Ulalume — Ulalume — 
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!" 

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober 
As the leaves that were crisped and sere — 
As the leaves that were withering and sere, 

And I cried — "It was surely October 
On this very night of last year 
That I journeyed — I journeyed down here — 
That I brought a dread burden down here — 
On this night of all nights in the year, 
Ah, what demon has tempted me here? 

Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber — 
This misty mid region of Weir — 

Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, 
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." 

TO MY MOTHER 

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, 

The angels, whispering to one another. 
Can find, among their burning terms of love, 

None so devotional as that of "Mother," 
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you — 

You who are more than mother unto me, 
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you. 

In setting my Virginia's spirit free. 



ANNABEL LEE 1 9 

My mother — my own mother, who died early, 
Was but the mother of myself; but you 

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, 
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew 

By that infinity with which my wife 
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. 

ANNABEL LEE 

It was many and many a year ago, 

In a kingdom by the sea 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee; 
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 

Than to love and be loved by me. 

/ was a child and she was a child, 

In this kingdom by the sea. 
But we loved with a love that was more than love — 

I and my Annabel Lee — 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that, long ago, 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee; 
So that her highborn kinsmen came 

And bore her .away from me, 
To shut her up in a sepulchre 

In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, 

Went envying her and me — 
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know, 

In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 



20 poe's poems 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love 

Of those who were older than we — 

Of many far wiser than we — 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 

Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: 

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride, 

In her sepulchre there by the sea — 

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 



THE BELLS 

I 

Hear the sledges with the bells — 
Silver bells! 
What a world of merriment their melody foretells! 
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 

In the icy air of night! 
While the stars that oversprinkle 
All the heavens, seem to twinkle 
With a crystalline delight; 
Keeping time, time, time. 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 
From the bells, bells, bells, bells. 
Bells, bells, bells — 
From the jingUng and the tinkling of the bells. 



THE BELLS 21 



II 



Hear the mellow wedding bells — 
Golden bells! 
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! 
Through the balmy air of night 
How they ring out their delight! — 
From the molten-golden notes, 

And all in tune, 
What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 
On the moon! 
Oh, from out the sounding cells, 
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! 
How it swells! 
How it dwells 
On the Future! — how it tells 
Of the rapture that impels 
To the swinging and the ringing 
Of the bells, bells, bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 



Ill 

Hear the loud alarum bells — 
Brazen bells! 
What a tale of terror, now their turbulency tells! 
In the startled ear of night 
How they scream out their affright! 
Too much horrified to speak, 
They can only shriek, shriek. 
Out of tune. 



22 POE's poems 

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, 
Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
With a desperate desire. 
And a resolute endeavor 
Now — now to sit, or never. 
By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
Oh, the bells, beUs,beUs! 
What a tale their terror tells 
Of Despair! 
How they clang, and clash, and roar! 
What a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air! 
Yet the ear, it fully knows, 
By the twanging, 
And the clanging, 
How the danger ebbs and flows; 
Yet the ear distinctly tells, 
In the janghng. 
And the wrangling. 
How the danger sinks and swells. 
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells — 
Of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
In the clamor and the clanging of the bells! 

IV 

Hear the tolling of the bells — 
Iron bells! 
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! 
In the silence of the night. 
How we shiver with affright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone! 
For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 
Is a groan. 



THE BELLS 23 

And the people — ah, the people — 
They that dwell up in the steeple, 

All alone, 
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, 

In that muffled monotone. 
Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone — 
They are neither man nor woman — 
They are neither brute nor human — 
They are Ghouls: — 
And their king it is who tolls: — 
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
Rolls 
A paean from the bells! 
And his merry bosom swells 

With the paean of the bells! 
And he dances, and he yells: 
Keeping time, time, time. 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
To the paean of the bells: — 
Of the bells: 
Keeping time, time, time 
In a sort of Runic rhyme. 

To the throbbing of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells — 
To the sobbing of the bells: — 
Keeping time, time, time. 

As he knells, knells, knells, 
In a happy Runic rhyme. 
To the rolling of the beUs — 
Of the bells, bells, beUs: — 
To the tolling of the bells — 
Of the beUs, bells, bells, bells. 
Bells, bells, beUs — 
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 



24 poe's poems 



ELDORADO 



Gayly bedight, 

A gallant kiiight, 
In sunshine and in shadow, 

Had journeyed long, 

Singing a song, 
In search of Eldorado. 

But he grew old — 

This knight so bold — 
And o'er his heart a shadow 

Fell as he found 

No spot of ground 
That looked like Eldorado. 

And, as his strength 

Failed him at length. 
He met a pilgrim shadow — 

"Shadow," said he, 

"Where can it be — 
This land of Eldorado?" 

"Over the Mountains 

Of the Moon, 
Down the Valley of the Shadow, 

Ride, boldly ride," 

The shade repHed, — 
If you seek for Eldorado." 



TALES 
SHADOW — A PARABLE 

Yea! though I walk through the valley of the Shadow. 

— Psalm of David [xxiii]. 

Ye who read are still among the living: but I who write 
shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. 
For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be 
known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials 
be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbe- 
lieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to 
ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron. 

The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings more 
intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth. 
For many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, 
over sea and land, the black wings of the Pestilence were 
spread abroad. To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars, 
it was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect of ill; 
and to me, the Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident 
that now had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred 
and ninety-fourth year when, at the entrance of Aries, the 
planet Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of the terrible 
Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake not 
greatly, made itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of 
the earth, but in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of 
mankind. 

Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of 
a noble hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a 
company of seven. And to our chamber there was no entrance 
save by a lofty door of brass; and the door was fashioned by 
the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare workmanship, was 

25 



26 poe's tales 

fastened from within. Black draperies, likewise, in the gloomy 
room, shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and 
the peopleless streets — but the boding and the memory of 
Evil, they would not be so excluded. There were things 
round us and about of which I can render no distinct account 

— things material and spiritual — heaviness in the atmosphere 

— a sense of suffocation — anxiety — and, above all, that 
terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when 
the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the 
powers of thought lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. 
It hung upon our limbs — upon the household furniture — 
upon the goblets from which we drank; and all things were 
depressed, and borne down thereby — all things save only the 
flames of the seven iron lamps which illumined our revel. 
Uprearing themselves in tall slender lines of hght, they thus 
remained burning all pallid and motionless; and in the mirror 
which their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony at 
which we sat, each of us there assembled beheld the pallor of 
his own countenance, and the unquiet glare in the downcast 
eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed and were merry in 
our proper way — which was hysterical; and sang the songs 
of Anacreon — which are madness ; and drank deeply — al- 
though the purple wine reminded us of blood. For there was 
yet another tenant of our chamber in the person of young 
Zoilus. Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded — the 
genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion 
in our mirth, save that his countenance, distorted with the 
plague, and his eyes in which Death had but half extinguished 
the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such interest in our 
merriment as the dead may haply take in the merriment of 
those who are to die. But although I, Oinos, felt that the 
eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced myself not 
to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and, gazing down 
steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud 
and sonorous voice the songs of the son of Teios. But gradually 



SHADOW — A PARABLE 27 

my songs they ceased, and their echoes, roUing afar off among 
the sable draperies of the chamber, became weak, and undis- 
tinguishable, and so faded away. And lo! from among those 
sable draperies where the sounds of the song departed, there 
came forth a dark and undefined shadow — a shadow such as 
the moon, when low in heaven, might fashion from the figure 
of a man; but it was the shadow neither of man, nor of God, 
nor of any familiar thing. And, quivering awhile among the 
draperies of the room, it at length rested in full view upon the 
surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and 
formless, and indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man, 
nor of God — neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, 
nor any Egyptian God. And the shadow rested upon the 
brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of the 
door, and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became 
stationary and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow 
rested was, if I remember aright, over against the feet of the 
young Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, 
having seen the shadow as it came out from among the draperies, 
dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes, and gazed 
continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at 
length I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the 
shadow its dwelling and its appellation. And the shadow 
answered, "I am SHADOW, and my dwelKng is near to the 
Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of 
Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal." 
And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, 
and stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast: for the tones 
in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, 
but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their cadences 
from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well- 
remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed 
friends. 



THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION 

ILvp (TOL TrpocroLO-io 

I will bring fire to thee 
EURIPIDES, Androm. [257]. 

Eiros 
Why do you call me Eiros? 

Charmion 
So henceforward will you always be called. You must 
forget, too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion. 

Eiros 
This is indeed no dream ! 

Charmion 
Dreams are with us no more; — but of these mysteries anon. 
I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film 
of the shadow has already passed, from off your eyes. Be of 
heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have 
expired; and, to-morrow, I will myself induct you into the full 
joys and wonders of your novel existence. 

Eiros 
True — I feel no stupor — none at all. The wild sickness 
and the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that 
mad, rushing, horrible sound, like the "voice of many waters." 
Yet my senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness 
of their perception of the new, 

Charmion 
A few days will remove all this; — but I fully understand you, 
and I feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I under- 

28 



THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION 29 

went what you undergo — yet the remembrance of it hangs 
by me still. You have now suffered all of pain, however, which 
you will suffer in Aidenn. 

Eiros 
In Aidenn? 

Charmion 
In Aidenn. 

Eiros 

Oh God ! — pity me, Charmion ! — I am overburdened with 
the majesty of all things — of the unknown now known — of 
the speculative Future merged in the august and certain 
Present. 

Charmion 

Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will 
speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find 
rehef in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor 
forward — but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the 
details of that stupendous event which threw you among us. 
Tell me of it. Let us converse of famiUar things, in the old 
familiar language of the world which has so fearfully perished. 

Eiros 
Most fearfully, fearfully! — this is indeed no dream. 

Charmion 
Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros? 

Eiros 
Mourned, Charmion? — oh, deeply. To that last hour of 
all, there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow 
over your household. 

Charmion 

And that last hour — speak of it. Remember that, beyond 

the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. 

When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night 

through the Grave — at that period, if I remember aright, the 



30 poe's tales 

calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. 
But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of 
the day. 

Eiros 

The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely unantici- 
pated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of 
discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, 
that, even when you left us, men had agreed to understand 
those passages in the most holy writings which speak of the 
final destruction of all things by fire, as having reference to 
the orb of the earth alone. But in regard to the immediate 
agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that 
epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were 
divested of the terrors of flame. The very moderate density 
of these bodies had been well established. They had been 
observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter, without 
bringing about any sensible alteration either in the masses or 
in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had long regarded 
the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity, 
and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our substantial 
globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was not in 
any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were 
accurately known. That among them we should look for the 
agency of the threatened fiery destruction had been for many 
years considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild 
fancies had been, of late days, strangely rife among mankind; 
and, although it was only with a few of the ignorant that actual 
apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by astrono- 
mers of a new comet, yet this announcement was generally 
received with I know not what of agitation and mistrust. 

The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, 
and it was at once conceded by all observers, that its path, at 
perihelion, would bring it into very close proximity with the 
earth. There were two or three astronomers, of secondary 
note, who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. 



THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION 31 

I cannot very well express to you the effect of this intelligence 
upon the people. For a few short days they would not believe 
an assertion which their intellect, so long employed among 
wordly considerations, could not in any manner grasp. But 
the truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into 
the understanding of even the most stolid. Finally, all men 
saw that astronomical knowledge lied not, and they awaited 
the comet. Its approach was not, at first, seemingly rapid; 
nor was its appearance of very unusual character. It was of a 
dull red, and had little perceptible train. For seven or eight 
days we saw no material increase in its apparent diameter, and 
but a partial alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary 
affairs of men were discarded, and all interests absorbed in a 
growing discussion, instituted by the philosophic, in respect 
to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused 
their sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned 
now gave their intellect — their soul — to no such points as 
the allaying of fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They 
sought — they panted for right views. They groaned for 
perfected knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her strength 
and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored. 
That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants 
would result from the apprehended contact, was an opinion 
which hourly lost ground among the wise; and the wise were 
now freely permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the 
crowd. It was demonstrated, that the density of the comet's 
nucleus was far less than that of our rarest gas; and the harm- 
less passage of a similar visitor among the satellites of Jupiter 
was a point strongly insisted upon, and which served greatly to 
allay terror. Theologists, with an earnestness fear-enkindled, 
dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, and expounded them 
to the people with a directness and simplicity of which no 
previous instance had been known. That the final destruc- 
tion of the earth must be brought about by the agency of fire, 
was urged with a spirit that enforced everywhere conviction; 



32 poe's tales 

and that the comets were of no fiery nature (as all men now 
knew) was a truth which relieved all, in a great measure, from 
the apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is notice- 
able that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in regard to 
pestilence and wars — errors which were wont to prevail upon 
every appearance of a comet — were now altogether unknown. 
As if by some sudden convulsive exertion, reason had at once 
hurled superstition from her throne. The feeblest intellect 
had derived vigor from excessive interest. 

What minor evils might arise from the contact were points 
of elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological 
disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and conse- 
quently in vegetation; of possible magnetic and electric in- 
fluences. Many held that no visible or perceptible effect 
would in any manner be produced. While such discussions 
were going on, their subject gradually approached, growing 
larger in apparent diameter, and of a more brilliant lustre. 
Mankind grew paler as it came. All human operations were 
suspended. 

There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment 
when the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that 
of any previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismiss- 
ing any lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, ex- 
perienced all the certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of 
their terror was gone. The hearts of the stoutest of our race 
beat violently within their bosoms. A very few days sufficed, 
however, to merge even such feelings in sentiments more un- 
endurable. We could no longer apply to the strange orb any 
accustomed thoughts. Its historical attributes had disappeared. 
It oppressed us with a hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it 
not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an 
incubus upon our hearts, and a shadow upon our brains. It 
had taken, with inconceivable rapidity, the character of a 
gigantic mantle of rare flame, extending from horizon to 
horizon. 



THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION 33 

Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was 
clear that we were already within the influence of the comet; 
yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and 
vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our 
dread was apparent; for all heavenly objects were plainly 
visible through it. Meantime, our vegetation had perceptibly 
altered; and we gained faith, from this predicted circumstance, 
in the foresight of the wise. A wild luxuriance of foliage, 
utterly unknown before, burst out upon every vegetable thing. 

Yet another day — and the evil was not altogether upon us. 
It was now evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A 
wild change had come over all men; and the first s^ise of pain 
was the wild signal for general lamentation and horror. This 
first sense of pain lay in a rigorous constriction of the breast 
and lungs, and an insufferable dryness of the skin. It could 
not be denied that our atmosphere was radically affected; 
the conformation of this atmosphere and the possible modi- 
fications to which it might be subjected, were now the topics 
of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric 
thrill of the intensest terror through the universal heart of man. 

It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a 
compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of 
twenty-one measures of oxygen, and seventy-nine of nitrogen, 
in every one hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was 
the principle of combustion and the vehicle of heat, was ab- 
solutely necessary to the support of animal life, and was the 
most powerful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen, on 
the contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal life 
or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had 
been ascertained, in just such an elevation of the animal spirits 
as we had latterly experienced. It was the pursuit, the ex- 
tension of the idea, which had engendered awe. What would 
be the result of a total extraction of the nitrogen? A com- 
bustion irresistible, all-devouring, omni-prevalent, immediate; 
— the entire fulfilment, in all their minute and terrible details, 



34 poe's tales 

of the fiery and horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies 
of the Holy Book, 

Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy 
of mankind? That tenuity in the comet which had previ- 
ously inspired Us with hope, was now the source of the bitter- 
ness of despair. In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly 
perceived the consummation of Fate. Meantime a day again 
passed — bearing away with it the last shadow of Hope. We 
gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The red blood 
bounded tumultuously through its strict channels. A furious 
dehrium possessed all men; and, with arms rigidly outstretched 
towards the threatening heavens, they trembled and shrieked 
aloud. But the nucleus of the destroyer was now upon us; 
— even here in Aidenn, I shudder while I speak. Let me be 
brief — brief as the ruin that overwhelmed. For a moment 
there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting and penetrating all 
things. Then let us bow down, Charmion, before the excessive 
majesty of the great God! — then, there came a shouting and 
pervading sound, as if from the mouth itself of HIM; while 
the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst 
at once into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing 
brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high Heaven 
of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all. 



ELEONORA 

Sub conservatione formae specificae salva anima. 

— Raymond Lully. 

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of 
passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not 
yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelli- 
gence — whether much that is glorious — whether all that is 
profound — does not spring from disease of thought — from 
moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. 
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which 
escape those who dream only by night. In their grey visions 
they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awaking, to 
find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. 
In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of 
good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They 
penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast 
ocean of the "light ineffable" and again, like the adventures 
of the Nubian geographer, "agressi sunt 'mare tenehrarum, 
quid in eo esset exploraturi.^' 

We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that 
there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence — 
the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belong- 
ing to the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life 
— and a condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to the 
present, and to the recollection of what constitutes the second 
great era of my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier 
period, believe; and to what I may relate of the later time, 
give only such credit as may seem due; or doubt it altogether; 
or, if doubt it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the (Edipus. 

She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly 
and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of 

35 



36 poe's tales 

the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the 
name of my cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath 
a tropical sun, in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No 
unguided footstep ever came upon that vale; for it lay far away, 
up among a range of giant hills that hung beetling around 
about it, shutting out the sunlight from its sweetest recesses. 
No path was trodden in its vicinity; and, to reach our happy 
home, there was need of putting back, with force, the foliage 
of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to death the 
glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it was that 
we Hved all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the 
valley, — I, and my cousin, and her mother. 

From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper 
end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and 
deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, 
winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at 
length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than 
those whence it had issued. We called it the "River of Si- 
lence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. 
No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, 
that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down 
within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless con- 
tent, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever. 

The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets 
that glided, through devious ways, into its channel, as well as 
the spaces that extended from the margins away down into 
the depths of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles 
at the bottom, — these spots, not less than the whole surface 
of the valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it 
in, were carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, per- 
fectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled through- 
out with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple 
violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty 
spoke to our hearts, in loud tones, of the love and of the glory 
of God. 



ELEONORA 37 

And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like wilder- 
nesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall slender 
stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully towards the 
light that peered at noon-day into the centre of the valley. 
Their bark was speckled with the vivid alternate splendor of 
ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save the cheeks 
of Eleonora; so that but for the brilhant green of the huge 
leaves that spread from their summits in long tremulous lines, 
dallying with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant 
serpents of Syria doing homage to their Sovereign the Sun. 

Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I 
with Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It 
was one evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, 
and of the fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other's 
embrace, beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down 
within the waters of the River of Silence at our images therein. 
We spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day; and our 
words even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. We 
had drawn the god Eros from that wave, and now we felt that 
he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. 
The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race 
came thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally 
noted, and together breathed a dehrious bliss over the Valley 
of the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. 
Strange brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burst out upon the trees 
where no flowers had been known before. The tints of the 
green carpet deepened; and when, one by one, the white daisies 
shrank away, there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten of 
the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our paths; for the 
tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay glowing birds, 
flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and 
silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, 
little by little, a murmur that swelled, at length, into a lulling 
melody more divine than that of the harp of ^olus — 
sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too, 



38 poe's tales 

a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions 
of Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, 
and settling in peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and 
lower, until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, 
turning all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us 
up, as if forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur 
and of glory. 

The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but 
she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had 
led among the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love 
which animated her heart, and she examined with me its 
inmost recesses as we walked together in the Valley of the 
Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of the mighty changes 
which had lately taken place therein. 

At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad 
change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt 
only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all 
our converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same 
images are found occurring, again and again, in every impressive 
variation of phrase. 

She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom 
— that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in 
loveliness only to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay 
solely in a consideration which she revealed to me, one evening 
at twilight, by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved 
to think that, having entombed her in the Valley of the Many- 
Colored Grass, I would quit forever its happy recesses, trans- 
ferring the love which now was so passionately her own to 
some maiden of the outer and every-day world. And, then 
and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, 
and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I would 
never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth — 
that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, 
or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had 
blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe 



ELEONORA 39 

to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse 
which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion, should 
I prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the 
exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make 
record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew 
brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burden had 
been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly 
wept; but she made acceptance of the vow (for what was she 
but a child?), and it made easy to her the bed of her death. 
And she said to me, not many days afterwards, tranquilly 
dying, that, because of what I had done for the comfort of her 
spirit, she would watch over me in that spirit when departed, 
and, if so it were permitted her, return to me visibly in the 
watches of the night; but, if this thing were, indeed, beyond 
the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would, at least, 
give me frequent indications of her presence; sighing upon 
me in the evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed 
with perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these 
words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent life, putting 
an end to the first epoch of my own. 

Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier 
in Time's path formed by the death of my beloved, and pro- 
ceed with the second era of my existence, I feel that a shadow 
gathers over my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of 
the record. But let me on. — Years dragged themselves 
along heavily, and still I dwelled within the Valley of the Many- 
Colored Grass; — but a second change had come upon all 
things. The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the 
trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet 
faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered away; 
and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, dark eye- 
like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered 
with dew. And Life departed from our paths; for the tall 
flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us, but 
flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay glowing 



40 poe's tales 

birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and 
silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of 
our domain and bedecked the sweet river never again. And 
the luUing melody that had been softer than the wind-harp 
of ^olus, and more divine than all save the voice of Eleonora, 
it died Httle by little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, 
until the stream returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity 
of its original silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud 
uprose, and, abandoning the tops of the mountains to the 
dimness of old, fell back into the regions of Hesper, and took 
away all its manifold golden and gorgeous glories from the 
Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. 

Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I 
heard the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels; 
and streams of holy perfume floated ever and ever about the 
valley; and at lone hours, when my heart beat heavily, the 
winds that bathed my brow came unto me laden with soft 
sighs; and indistinct murmurs filled often the night air; 
and once — oh, but once only! I was awakened from a slumber 
like the slumber of death by the pressing of spiritual lips upon 
my own. 

But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. 
I longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. 
At length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleo- 
nora, and I left it forever for the vanities and the turbulent 
triumphs of the world. 

******** 

I found myself within a strange city, where all things might 
have served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had 
dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. 
The pomps and pageantries of a stately court, and the mad 
clangor of arms, and the radiant lovehness of woman, bewildered 
and intoxicated my brain. But as yet my soul had proved 
true to its vows, and the indications of the presence of Eleonora 
were still given me in the silent hours of the night. Suddenly, 



ELEONORA 4I 

these manifestations — they ceased; and the world grew dark 
before mine eyes; and I stood aghast at the burning thoughts 
which possessed — at the terrible temptations which beset me; 
for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, 
into the gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose 
beauty my whole recreant heart yielded at once — at whose 
footstool I bowed down without a struggle, in the most ardent, 
in the most abject worship of love. What indeed was my 
passion for the young girl of the valley in comparison with 
the fervor, and the delirium, and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of 
adoration with which I poured out my whole soul in tears 
at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? Oh, bright was the 
seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for 
none other. — Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as 
I looked down into the depths of her memorial eyes I thought 
only of them — and of her. 

I wedded; — nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its 
bitterness was not visited upon me. And once — but once 
again in the silence of the night, there came through my lattice 
the soft sighs which had forsaken me; and they modelled 
themselves into familiar and sweet voice, saying: 

"Sleep in peace! — for the Spirit of Love reigneth and 
ruleth, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermen- 
garde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be made 
known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora. " 



LIGEIA 

And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries 
of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things 
by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, 
nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. 

— Joseph Glanvill. 

I CANNOT, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely 
where, I first became acquainted with the Lady Ligeia. Long 
years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through 
much suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring these points 
to mind, because, in truth, the character of my beloved, her 
rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the 
thrilHng and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language, 
made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and stealthily 
progressive that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet 
I believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large, 
old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family — I have 
surely heard her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date 
cannot be doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! Buried in studies of a 
nature more than all else adapted to deaden impressions of the 
outward world, it is by that sweet word alone — by Ligeia — 
that I bring before mine eyes in fancy the image of her who is 
no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon 
me that I have never known the paternal name of her who was 
my friend and my betrothed, and who became the partner of 
my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful 
charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of my strength 
of affection, that I should institute no inquiries upon this point? 
or was it rather a caprice of my own — a wildly romantic offer- 
ing on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but in- 
distinctly recall the fact itself — what wonder that I have 

42 



LIGEIA 43 

utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended 
it? And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled Romance — 
if ever she, the wan and the misty- winged Ashtophet of idola- 
trous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, 
then most surely she presided over mine. 

There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails 
me not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, 
somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I 
would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease 
of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elas- 
ticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I 
was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save 
by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her 
marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden 
ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream — 
an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the 
phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the 
daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular 
mould which we have been falsely taught to worship in the 
classical labors of the heathen. " There is no exquisite beauty," 
says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and 
genera of beauty, "without some strangeness in the proportion." 
Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a 
classic regularity — although I perceived that her loveliness 
was indeed "exquisite," and felt that there was much of 
"strangeness" pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect 
the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of "the 
strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and pale fore- 
head — it was faultless — how cold indeed that word when 
apphed to a majesty so divine! — the skin rivaUing the purest 
ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence 
of the regions above the temples; and then the raven-black, 
the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curhng tresses, setting 
forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, "hyacinthine!" I 
looked at the dehcate outUnes of the nose — and nowhere but 



44 

in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar 
perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of 
surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, 
the same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. 
I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of 
all things heavenly — the magnificent turn of the short upper 
lip — the soft, voluptuous slumber of the under — the dimples 
which sported, and the color which spoke — the teeth glancing 
back, with a brilliancy almost startling, every ray of the holy 
light which fell upon them in her serene and placid, yet most 
exultingly radiant of all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of 
the chin — and here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, 
the softness and the majesty, the fulness and the spirituality, 
of the Greek — the contour which the god Apollo revealed but 
in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian. And then 
I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia. 

For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It 
might have been, too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the 
secret to which Lord Verulam alludes. They were, I must 
believe, far larger than the ordinary eyes of our own race. They 
were even fuller than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe 
of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at intervals — in 
moments of intense excitement — that this peculiarity became 
more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments 
was her beauty — in my heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps 

— the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth 

— the beauty of the fabulous Houri of the Turk. The hue 
of the orbs was the most brilliant of black, and, far over them, 
hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular 
in outline, had the same tint. The "strangeness," however, 
which I found in the eyes, was of a nature distinct from the 
formation, or the color, of the brilliancy of the features, and 
must, after all, be referred to the expression. Ah, word of no 
meaning! behind whose vast latitude of mere sound we in- 
trench our ignorance of so much of the spiritual. The expres- 



LIGEIA 45 

sion of the eyes of Ligeia! How for long hours have I pondered 
upon it I How have I, through the whole of a midsummer 
night, struggled to fathom it! What was it — that something 
more profound than the well of Democritus — which lay far 
within the pupils of my beloved? What was it? I was pos- 
sessed with a passion to discover. Those eyes! those large, 
those shining, those divine orbs! they became to me twin stars 
of Leda, and I to them devoutest of astrologers. 

There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anoma- 
lies of the science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the 
fact — never, I believe, noticed in the schools — that, in our 
endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we 
often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without 
being able, in the end, to remember. And thus how frequently, 
in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia's eyes, have I felt approaching 
the full knowledge of their expression — felt it approaching — 
yet not quite be mine — and so at length entirely depart! 
And (strange, oh, strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the 
commonest objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to that 
expression. I mean to say that, subsequently to the period 
when Ligeia's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as 
in a shrine, I derived, from many existences in the material 
world, a sentiment such as I felt always aroused within me by 
her large and luminous orbs. Yet not the more could I define 
that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I recog- 
nized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly- 
growing vine — in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a 
chrysaKs, a stream of running water. I have felt it in the ocean; 
in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it in the glances of 
unusually aged people. And there are one or two stars in 
heaven — (one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude, double 
and changeable, to be found near the large star in Lyra) in a 
telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the 
feeling. I have been filled with it by certain sounds from 
stringed instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from 



46 poe's tales 

books. Among innumerable other instances, I well remember 
something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps 
merely from its quaintness — who shall say?) never failed to 
inspire me with the sentiment: — "And the will therein lieth, 
which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with 
its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by 
nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the 
angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness 
of his feeble will." 

Length of years, and subsequent reflection, have enabled me 
to trace, indeed, some remote connection between this passage 
in the English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. 
An intensity in thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, 
a result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition which, 
during our long intercourse, failed to give other and more 
immediate evidence of its existence. Of all the women whom 
I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the ever-placid 
Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures 
of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, 
save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once 
so delighted and appalled me — by the almost magical melody, 
modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice — 
and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast 
with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which she 
habitually uttered. 

I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia : it was immense — 
such as I have never known in woman. In the classical tongue 
was she deeply proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance 
extended in regard to the modern dialects of Europe, I have 
never known her at fault. Indeed upon any theme of the most 
admired, because simply the most abstruse of the boasted 
erudition of the academy, have I ever found Ligeia at fault? 
How singularly — how thrillingly, this one point in the nature 
of my wife has forced itself, at this late period only, upon rny 
attention! I said her knowledge was such as I have never 



LIGEIA 47 

known in woman — but where breathes the man who has 
traversed, and successfully, all the wide areas of moral, physical, 
and mathematical science? I saw not then what I now clearly 
perceive, that the acquisitions of Ligeia were gigantic, were 
astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of her infinite suprem- 
acy to resign myself, with a child-like confidence, to her guid- 
ance through the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation 
at which I was most busily occupied during the earlier years of 
our marriage. With how vast a triumph — with how vivid a 
delight — with how much of all that is ethereal in hope — did 
Ifeel, as she bent over me in studies but little sought — but less 
known — that delicious vista by slow degrees expanding before 
me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I 
might at length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely 
precious not to be forbidden! 

How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, 
after some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take 
wings to themselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but 
as a child groping benighted. Her presence, her readings alone, 
rendered vividly luminous the many mysteries of the trans- 
cendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting the 
radiant lustre of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew 
duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and 
less frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia 
grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a too — too glorious 
effulgence; the pale fingers became of the transparent waxen 
hue of the grave, and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead 
swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle 
emotion. I saw that she must die — and I struggled desper- 
ately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the 
passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more energetic 
than my own. There had been much in her stern nature to 
impress me with the behef that, to her, death would have come 
without its terrors; — but not so. Words are impotent to 
convey any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which 



48 poe's tales 

she wrestled with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the 
pitiable spectacle. I would have soothed — I would have 
reasoned; but, in the intensity of her wild desire for Hfe, — for 
life — hut for Hfe — solace and reason were alike the uttermost 
of folly. Yet not until the last instance, amid the most con- 
vulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shaken the external 
placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew more gentle — 
grew more low — yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild 
meaning of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I 
hearkened entranced to a melody more than mortal — to 
assumptions and aspirations which mortality had never before 
known. 

That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might 
have been easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would 
have reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only, was I 
fully impressed with the strength of her affection. For long 
hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the 
overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devotion 
amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by 
such confessions? — how had I deserved to be so cursed with 
the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them? 
But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, 
that in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, 
alas! all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length 
recognized the principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a 
desire for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is 
this wild longing — it is this eager vehemence of desire for life 
— hut for hfe — that I have no power to portray — no utter- 
ance capable of expressing. 

At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning 
me, peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses 
composed by herself not many days before. I obeyed her. — 
They were these: 



LIGEIA 49 



Lo! 't is a gala night 

Within the lonesome latter years! 
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight 

In veils, and drowned in tears, 
Sit in a theatre, to see 

A play of hopes and fears, 
While the orchestra breathes fitfully 

The music of the spheres. 

Mimes, in the form of God on high, 

Mutter and mumble low. 
And hither and thither fly — 

Mere puppets they, who come and g 
At bidding of vast formless tilings 

That shift the scenery to and fro. 
Flapping from out their Condor wings 

Invisible Wo ! 



That motley drama! — oh, be sure 

It shall not be forgot! 
With its Phantom chased for evermore, 

By a crowd that seize it not. 
Through a circle that ever returneth in 

To the self-same spot, 
And much of Madness and more of Sin 

And Horror the soul of the plot. 

But see, amid the mimic rout, 

A crawling shape intrude ! 
A blood-red thing that writhes from out 

The scenic solitude! 
It writhes! — it writhes! — with mortal pangs 

The mimes become its food, 
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs 

In human gore imbued. 

Out — out are the lights — out all I 

And over each quivering form, 
The curtain, a funeral pall. 

Comes down with the rush of a storm, 
While the angels, all pallid and wan, 

Uprising, unveiling, aflSrm 
That the play is the tragedy, " Man, " 

And its hero the Conqueror Worm. 



50 poe's tales 

"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and 
extending her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made 
an end of these lines — "O God! O Divine Father! — shall 
these things be undeviatingly so? — shall this Conqueror be not 
once conquered? Are we not part and parcel in Thee? Who 

— who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigor? Man 
doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save 
only through the weakness of his feeble will," 

And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her 
white arms to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. 
And as she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with 
them a low murmur from her lips. I bent to them my ear 
and distinguished, again, the concluding words of the pas- 
sage in Glanvill — "Man doth not yield him to the angels; nor 
unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble 
wilir 

She died; — and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, 
could no longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in 
the dim and decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what 
the world calls wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very 
far more than ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals. After a 
few months, therefore, of weary and aimless wandering, I pur- 
chased, and put in some repair, an abbey, which I shall not 
name, in one of the wildest and least frequented portions of fair 
England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, 
the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy 
and time-honored memories connected with both, had much in 
unison with the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven 
me into that remote and unsocial region of the country. Yet 
although the external abbey, with its verdant decay hanging 
about it, suffered but Httle alteration, I gave way, with a child- 
like perversity, and perchance with a faint hope of alleviating 
my sorrows, to a display of more than regal magnificence within. 

— For such follies, even in childhood, I had imbibed a taste and 
now they came back to me as if in the dotage of grief, Alas, I 



LIGEIA SI 

feel how much even of incipient madness might have been dis- 
covered in the gorgeous and fantastic draperies, in the solemn 
carvings of Egypt, in the wild cornices and furniture, in the 
Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted gold! I had become 
a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my labors and 
my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But these 
absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me speak only of 
that one chamber, ever accursed, whither in a moment of mental 
alienation, I led from the altar as my bride — as the successor 
of the unforgotten Ligeia — the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady 
Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine. 

There is no individual portion of the architecture and deco- 
ration of that bridal chamber which is not now visibly before 
me. Where were the souls of the haughty family of the bride, 
when, through thirst of gold, they permitted to pass the thresh- 
old of an apartment so bedecked, a maiden and a daughter so 
beloved? I have said that I minutely remember the details 
of the chamber — yet I am sadly forgetful on topics of deep 
moment — and here there was no system, no keeping, in the 
fantastic display, to take hold upon the memory. The room 
lay in a high turret of the castellated abbey, was pentagonal in 
shape, and of capacious size. Occupying the whole southern 
face of the pentagon was the sole window — an immense sheet 
of unbroken glass from Venice — a single pane, and tinted of a 
leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or moon, passing 
through it, fell with a ghastly lustre on the objects within. 
Over the upper portion of this huge window, extended the trellis- 
work of an aged vine, which clambered up the massy walls of 
the turret. The ceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively 
lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted with the wildest and most 
grotesque specimens of a semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. 
From out the most central recess of this melancholy vault- 
ing, depended, by a single chain of gold with long links, a huge 
censer of the same metal, Saracenic in pattern, and with many 
perforations so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, 



52 POE S TALES 

as if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual succession of 
partly-colored fires. 

Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, 
were in various stations about — and there was the couch, 
too — the bridal couch — of an Indian model, and low, and 
sculptured of solid ebony, with a pall-like canopy above. In 
each of the angles of the chamber stood on end a gigantic 
sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings over 
against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial sculpture. 
But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the chief phantasy 
of all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height — even unpropor- 
tionably so — were hung from summit to foot, in vast folds, 
with a heavy and massive-looking tapestry — tapestry of a 
material which was found alike as a carpet on the floor, as a 
covering for the ottomans and the ebony bed, as a canopy for 
the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the curtains which 
partially shaded the window. The material was the richest 
cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular intervals, 
with arabesque figures, about a foot in diameter, and wrought 
upon the cloth in patterns of the most jetty black. But these 
figures partook of the true character of the arabesque only when 
regarded from a single point of view. By a contrivance now 
common, and indeed traceable to a very remote period of anti- 
quity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one entering 
the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; 
but upon a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; 
and step by step, as the visiter moved his station in the chamber, 
he saw himself surrounded by an endless succession of the 
ghastly forms which belong to the superstition of the Norman, 
or arise in the guilty slumbers of the monk. The phantasma- 
goric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial introduction 
of a strong continual current of wind behind the draperies — 
giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole. 

In halls such as these — in a bridal chamber such as this — 
I passed, with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallov/ed hours of 



LIGEIA 53 

the first month of our marriage — passed them with but little 
disquietude. That my wife dreaded the fierce moodiness of 
my temper — that she shunned me and loved me but little — 
I could not help perceiving; but it gave me rather pleasure than 
otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred belonging more to 
demon than to man. My memory flew back (oh, with what 
intensity of regret!), to Ligeia, the beloved, the august, the 
beautiful, the entombed. I revelled in recollections of her 
purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty, her ethereal nature, of her 
passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit fully 
and freely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In the 
excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered 
in the shackles of the drug) I would call aloud upon her name, 
during the silence of the night, or among the sheltered recesses 
of the glens by day, as if, through the wild eagerness, the solemn 
passion, the consuming ardor of my longing for the departed, I 
could restore her to the pathway she had abandoned — ah, 
could it be forever? — upon the earth. 

About the commencement of the second month of the mar- 
riage, the Lady Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from 
which her recovery was slow. The fever which consumed her 
rendered her nights uneasy; and in her perturbed state of half- 
slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of motions, iii and about the 
chamber of the turret, which I concluded had no origin save in 
the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the phantasmagoric 
influences of the chamber itself. She became at length con- 
valescent — finally well. Yet but a brief period elapsed, ere a 
second more violent disorder again threw her upon a bed of 
suffering; and from this attack her frame, at all times feeble, 
never altogether recovered. Her illnesses were, after this 
epoch, of alarming character, and of more alarming recurrence, 
defying alike the knowledge and the great exertions of her 
physicians. With the increase of the chronic disease which had 
thus, apparently, taken too sure hold upon her constitution to be 
eradicated by human means, I could not fail to observe a similar 



54 POE S TALES 

increase in the nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her 
excitabihty by trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now 
more frequently and pertinaciously, of the sounds — of the 
slight sounds — and of the unusual motions among the tapes- 
tries, to which she had formerly alluded. 

One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this 
distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my 
attention. She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, 
and I had been watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of 
vague terror, the workings of her emaciated countenance. I 
sat by the side of her ebony bed, upon one of the ottomans of 
India. She partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low whisper, 
of sounds which she then heard, but which I could not hear — 
of motions which she then saw, but which I could not perceive. 
The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I 
wished to show her (what, let me confess it, I could not all 
believe) that those almost inarticulate breathings, and those 
very gentle variations of the figures upon the wall, were but the 
natural effects of that customary rushing of the wind. But a 
deadly pallor, overspreading her face, had proved to me that 
my exertions to reassure her would be fruitless. She appeared 
to be fainting, and no attendants were within call. I remem- 
bered where was deposited a decanter of light wine which had 
been ordered by her physicians, and hastened across the cham- 
ber to procure it. But, as I stepped beneath the light of the 
censer, two circumstances of a startling nature attracted my 
attention. I had felt that some palpable although invisible 
object had passed lightly by my person; and I saw that there 
lay upon the golden carpet, in the very middle of the rich lustre 
thrown from the censer, a shadow — a faint, indefinite shadow 
of angelic aspect — such as might be fancied for the shadow of 
a shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate 
dose of opium, and heeded these things but Httle, nor spoke of 
them to Rowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the 
chamber, and poured out a goblet-ful, which I held to the lios 



LIGEIA 55 

of the fainting lady. She had now partially recovered, how- 
ever, and took the vessel herself, while I sank upon an ottoman 
near me, with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was then 
that I became distinctly aware of a gentle foot-fall upon the 
carpet, and near the couch; and in a second thereafter, as 
Rowena was in the act of raising the wine to her lips, 
I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the 
goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the atmosphere 
of the room, three or four large drops of a brilHant and ruby 
colored fluid. If this I saw — not so Rowena. She swal- 
lowed the wine unhesitatingly, and I forbore to speak to 
her of a circiunstance which must, after all, I considered, 
have been but the suggestion of a vivid imagination, rendered 
morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the opium, and 
by the hour. 

Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, im- 
mediately subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid 
change for the worst took place in the disorder of my wife; so 
that, on the third subsequent night, the hands of her menials 
prepared her for the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with 
her shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber which had re- 
ceived her as my bride. — Wild visions, opium-engendered, 
flitted, shadow-like, before me. I gazed with unquiet eye upon 
the sarcophagi in the angles of the room, upon the varying 
figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of the party- 
colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I 
called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot 
beneath the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces 
of the shadow. It was there, however, no longer; and breath- 
ing with greater freedom, I turned my glances to the pallid and 
rigid figure upon the bed. Then rushed upon me a thousand 
memories of Ligeia — and then came back upon my heart, 
with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that un- 
utterable wo with which I had regarded her thus enshrouded. 
The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts 



56 poe's tales 

of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon 
the body of Rowena. 

It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for 
I had taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very 
distinct, startled me from my revery. — I felt that it came from 
the bed of ebony — the bed of death. I listened in an agony 
of superstitious terror — but there was no repetition of the 
sound. I strained my vision to detect any motion in the 
corpse — but' there was not the slightest perceptible. Yet I 
could not have been deceived. I had heard the noise, however 
faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely and 
perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. Many 
minutes elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to 
throw light upon the mystery. At length it became evident 
that a slight, a very feeble, and barely noticeable tinge of color 
had flushed up within the cheeks, and along the sunken small 
veins of the eyelids. Through a species of unutterable horror 
and awe, for which the language of mortality has no sufficiently 
energetic expression, I felt my heart cease to beat, my limbs 
grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty finally operated to 
restore my self-possession. I could no longer doubt that we 
had beeai precipitate in our preparations — that Rowena still 
lived. It was necessary that some immediate exertion be made; 
yet the turret was altogether apart from the portion of the 
abbey tenanted by the servants — there were none within 
call — I had no means of summoning them to my aid without 
leaving the room for many minutes — and this I could not, 
venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to 
call back the spirit still hovering. In a short period it was 
certain, however, that a relapse had taken place; the color 
disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even 
more than that of marble; the lips became doubly shrivelled 
and pinched up in the ghastly expression of death; a repulsive 
clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the surface of the 
body; and all the usual rigorous stififness immediately super- 



LIGEIA 57 

vened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which 
I had been so startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to 
passionate waking visions of Ligeia, 

An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a 
second time aware of some vague sound issuing from the region 
of the bed. I listened — in extremity of horror. The sound 
came again — it was a sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw — 
distinctly saw — a tremor upon the Ups. In a minute after- 
wards they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the pearly teeth. 
Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the profound awe 
which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that my vision 
grew dim, that my reason wandered; and it was only by a 
violent effort that I at length succeeded in nerving myself to 
the task which duty thus once more had pointed out. There 
was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the cheek 
and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame; 
there was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady lived; 
and with redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of res- 
toration. I chafed and bathed the temples and the hands, and 
used every exertion which experience, and no Httle medical 
reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the color fled, 
the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of the 
dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon 
itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity, the 
sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that which 
has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb. 

And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia — and again, (what 
marvel that I shudder while I write?) again there reached my 
ears a low sob from the region of the ebony bed. But why shall 
I minutely detail the unspeakable horrors of that night? Why 
shall I pause to relate how, time after time, until near the period 
of the gray dawn, this hideous drama of revivification was 
repeated; how each terrific relapse was only into a sterner and 
apparently more irredeemable death ; how each agony wore the 
aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and how each 



58 poe's tales 

struggle was succeeded by I know not what of wild change In 
the personal appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a 
conclusion. 

The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she 
who had been dead, once again stirred — and now more vigor- 
ously than hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution more 
appalling in its utter helplessness than any. I had long ceased 
to struggle or to move, and remained sitting rigidly upon the 
ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl of violent emotions, of which 
extreme awe was perhaps the least terrible, the least consuming. 
The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now more vigorously than 
before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted energy into 
the countenance — the limbs relaxed — and, save that the eye- 
lids were yet pressed heavily together, and that the bandages 
and draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel character 
to the figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed 
shaken off, utterly, the fetters of Death. But if this idea was 
not, even then, altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no 
longer, when, arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, 
with closed eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a 
dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced bodily and 
palpably into the middle of the apartment. 

I trembled not — I stirred not — for a crowd of unutterable 
fancies connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the 
figure, rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed — 
had chilled me into stone. I stirred not — but gazed upon the 
apparition. There was a mad disorder in my thoughts — a 
tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the livi7ig Rowena 
who confronted me? Could it indeed be Rowena at all — the 
fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tre- 
maine? Why, why should I doubt it? The bandage lay 
heavily about the mouth — but then might it not be the mouth 
of the breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks — there 
were the roses as in her noon of life — yes, these might indeed 
be the fair cheeks of the Uving Lady of Tremaine, And the 



LIGEIA 59 

chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not be hers? but 
had she then grown taller since her malady? What inexpressible 
madness seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had 
reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from 
her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined 
it, and there streamed forth, into the rushing atmosphere of 
the chamber, huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; it was 
blacker than the raven wings of the midnight ! And now slowly 
opened the eyes of the figure which stood before me. "Here 
then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never — can I never 
be mistaken — these are the full, and the black, and the wild 
eyes — of my lost love — of the Lady — of the Lady Ligeia." 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 

Son coeur est un luth suspendu; 
Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne. 

— De Beranger. 

During the whole of a duU, dark, and soundless day in the 
autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in 
the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through 
a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found 
myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the 
melancholy House of Usher, I know not how it was — but, 
with the first gHmpse of the building, a sense of insufferable 
gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling 
was unrelieved by any of that half -pleasurable, because poetic, 
sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the 
sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked 
upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the 
simple landscape features of the domain — upon the bleak 
walls — upon the vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank 
sedges — and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — 
with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no 
earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the 
reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into everyday life — 
the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a 
sinking, a sickening of the heart — an unredeemed dreariness 
of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture 
into aught of the sublime. What was it — I paused to think — 
what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the 
House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I 
grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I 
pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory 
conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations 

60 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 6 1 

of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus 
affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considera- 
tions beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a 
mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of 
the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or 
perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; 
and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous 
brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by 
the dwelling, and gazed down — but with a shudder even more 
thrilling than before — upon the remodelled and inverted 
images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the 
vacant and eye-like windows. 

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to 
myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick 
Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but 
many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, how- 
ever, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country — 
a letter from him — which, in its wildly importunate nature, 
had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. 
gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute 
bodily illness — of a mental disorder which oppressed him — 
and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his 
only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheer- 
fulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was 
the manner in which all this, and much more, was said — it 
was the apparent heart that went with his request — which 
allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed 
forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons. 

Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet 
I really knew Httle of my friend. His reserve had been always 
excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very 
ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar 
sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, 
in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in re- 
peated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as 



62 POE S TALES 

in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more 
than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of 
musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, 
that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had 
put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, 
that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had 
always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so 
lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over 
in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises 
with the accredited character of the people, and while speculat- 
ing upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse 
of centuries, might have exercised upon the other — it was this 
deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent 
undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony 
with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to 
merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal 
appellation of the "House of Usher" — an appellation which 
seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, 
both the family and the famfly mansion. 

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat chfldish 
experiment — that of looking down within the tarn — had been 
to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt 
that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition 
— for why should I not so term it? — served mainly to acceler- 
ate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the para- 
doxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it 
might have been for this reason only, that, when I again up- 
lifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, 
there grew in my mind a strange fancy — a fancy so ridiculous, 
indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the 
sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my 
imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion 
and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves 
and their immediate vicinity — an atmosphere which had no 
affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 63 

the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn — - a 
pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, 
and leaden-hued. 

Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I 
scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its 
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. 
The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi over- 
spread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work 
from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary 
dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there 
appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect 
adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the in- 
dividual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of 
the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for 
long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from 
the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of 
extensive decay, however, tjie fabric gave little token of in- 
stability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might 
have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending 
from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the 
wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen 
waters of the tarn. 

Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the 
house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the 
Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence 
conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate 
passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much 
that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to 
heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. 
While the objects around me — while the carvings of the 
ceiUngs, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness 
of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which 
rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as 
which, I had been accustomed from my infancy — while I 
hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this — I still 



64^ 

wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary- 
images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the 
physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a 
mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted 
me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw 
open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master. 

The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. 
The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a 
distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inacces- 
sible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made 
their way through the treUised panes, and served to render 
sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the 
eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of 
the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. 
Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture 
was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books 
and musical instnmients lay scattered about, but failed to give 
any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere 
of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung 
over and pervaded all. 

Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had 
been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious 
warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone 
cordiality — of the constrained effort of the ennuye man of the 
world. A glance, however, at his countenance convinced me 
of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, 
while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, 
half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, 
in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher ! It was with diffi- 
culty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the 
wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. 
Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. 
A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and 
luminous beyond comparison; Hps somewhat thin and very 
pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 65 

Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar 
formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of 
prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than 
web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate 
expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether 
a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere 
exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and 
of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of 
change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly 
pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, 
above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, 
too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild 
gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I 
could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression 
with any idea of simple humanity. 

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an 
incoherence — an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise 
from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an 
habitual trepidancy — • an excessive nervous agitation. For 
something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by 
his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by 
conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation 
and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and 
sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision 
(when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that 
species of energetic concision — that abrupt, weighty, un- 
hurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation — that leaden, self- 
balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which 
may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater 
of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement. 

It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his 
earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to 
afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he con- 
ceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a con- 
stitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to 



66 poe's tales 

find a remedy — a mere nervous affection, he immediately 
added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed 
itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he 
detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, per- 
haps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had 
their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of 
the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could 
wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers 
were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; 
and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed 
instruments, which did not inspire him with horror. 

To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden 
slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplor- 
able folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I 
dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their 
results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most 
trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable 
agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, 
except in its absolute effect — in terror. In this unnerved — 
in this pitiable condition — I feel that the period will sooner or 
later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in 
some struggle with the grim phantasm. Fear." 

I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and 
equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. 
He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard 
to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, 
he had never ventured forth — in regard to an influence whose 
supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here 
to be re-stated — an influence which some peculiarities in the 
mere form and substance of his family mansion had, by dint of 
long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit — an effect 
which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim 
tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought 
about upon the morale of his existence. 

He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER ^ 67 

of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced 
to a more natural and far more palpable origin — to the severe 
and long-continued illness — indeed to the evidently approach- 
ing dissolution — of a tenderly beloved sister — his sole com- 
panion for long years — his last and only relative on earth. 
"Her decease," he said, with a bitterness which I can never 
forget, "would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the 
last of the ancient race of the Ushers." While he spoke, the 
lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a 
remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed 
my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter 
astonishment not unmingled with dread — and yet I found it 
impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor 
oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When 
a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively 
and eagerly the countenance of the brother — but he had buried 
his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more 
than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers 
through which trickled many passionate tears. 

The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of 
her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of 
the person, and frequent although transient affections of a 
partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. 
Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her 
malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the 
closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she suc- 
cumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible 
agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I 
learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would 
thus probably be the last I should obtain — that the lady, at 
least while living, would be seen by me no more. 

For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by 
either Usher or myself; and during this period I was busied in 
earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. 
We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to 



68 poe's tales 

the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as 
a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly 
into the recesses of his spirit, ^.e more bitterly did I perceive 
the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which dark- 
ness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all 
objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing 
radiation of gloom. 

I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn 
hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. 
Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact 
character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he 
involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly dis- 
tempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long 
improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other 
things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion 
and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. 
From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, 
and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I 
shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing 
not why; — from these paintings (vivid as their images now 
are before me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a 
small portion which should lie within the compass of merely 
written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of 
his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever 
mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For 
me at least — in the circumstances then surrounding me — 
there arose out of the pure abstractions which the hypochon- 
driac contrived to throw upon his canvas, an intensity of 
intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the con- 
templation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of 
Fuseli. 

One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, par- 
taking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shad- 
owed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture pre- 
sented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 69 

or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without inter- 
ruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design 
served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an 
exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was 
observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or other 
artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense 
rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and 
inappropriate splendor. 

I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory 
nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with 
the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It 
was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined him- 
self upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the 
fantastic character of his performances. But the ierv'id facility 
of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must 
have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his 
wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself 
with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense 
mental collectedness and concentration to which I have pre- 
viously alluded as observable only in particular moments of 
the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these 
rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the 
more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the 
under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I per- 
ceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of 
Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. 
The verses, which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran 
very nearly, if not accurately, thus: 

I 

In the greenest of our valleys, 

By good angels tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately palace — 

Radiant palace — reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion — 

It stood there! 
Never seraph spread a pinion 

Over fabric half so fair. 



70 poe's tales 

II 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 

On its roof did float and flow; 
(This — all this — was in the olden 

Time long ago) 
And every gentle air that dallied 

In that sweet day, 
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went away. 

Ill 

Wanderers in that happy valley 

Through two luminous windows saw 
- Spirits moving musically 

To a lute's well-tuned law, 
Roimd about a throne, where sitting 

(Porphyrogene!) 
In state his glory well befitting. 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 

IV 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing 

Was the fair palace door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing 

And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty 

Was but to sing, 
In voices of surpassing beauty. 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 

V 
But evil things, in robes of sorrow. 

Assailed the monarch's high estate; 
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow 

Shall dawn upon him, desolate!) 
And, round about his home, the glory 

That blushed and bloomed 
Is but a dim-remembered story 

Of the old time entombed. 

VI 

And travellers now within that valley, 

Through the red-litten windows, see 
Vast forms that move fantastically 

To a discordant melody; 
While, like a ghastly rapid river, 

Through the pale door, 
A hideous throng rush out forever, 

And laugh — but smile no more. 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 7 1 

I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad 
led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an 
opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of 
its novelty, (for other men* have thought thus,) as on account of 
the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This,opinion, in its 
general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. 
But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more 
daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon 
the kingdom of inorganization, I lack words to express the 
full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The 
beHef, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) 
with the grsLj stones of the home of his forefathers. The con- 
ditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in 
the method of collocation of these stones — in the order of their 
arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which over- 
spread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around — 
above all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrange- 
ment, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. 
Its evidence — the evidence of the sentience — was to be seen, 
he said, (and I here started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet 
certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the 
waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, 
in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for 
centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which 
made him what I now saw him — what he was. Such opinions 
need no comment, and I will make none. 

Our books — the books which, for years, had formed no small 
portion of the mental existence of the invalid — were, as might 
be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. 
We pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse 
of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell 
of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm 
by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean DTnda- 

* Watson, Dr. Percival, Spalfanzani, and especially the Bishop of Lan- 
daff. — See Chemical Essays, vol. v. 



72 POE S TALES 

gine, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance 
ofTieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite 
volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisi- 
torum by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were 
passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and 
iEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His 
chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceed- 
ingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic — the manual of 
a forgotten church — the VigilicB Mortuorum Secundum Cho- 
rum Ecclesice Maguntince. 

I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and 
of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one 
evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline 
was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse 
for a fortnight, (previously to its final interment,) in one of the 
numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The 
worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding, 
was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother 
had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration 
of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of 
certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical 
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial- 
ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to 
mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon 
the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no 
desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and 
by no means an unnatural, precaution. 

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the ar- 
rangements for the temporary entombment. The body having 
been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in 
which we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that 
our torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave 
us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and 
entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great 
depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 73 

which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, 
apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a 
donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, 
or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its 
floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which 
we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, 
of massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its im- 
mense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it 
moved upon its hinges. 

Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within 
this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet un- 
screwed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. 
A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first 
arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my 
thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned 
that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympa- 
thies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between 
them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead — 
for we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had 
thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth had left, as 
usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the 
mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that 
suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in 
death. We replaced and screwed down the Hd, and, having 
secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the 
scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the 
house. 

And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observ- 
able change came over the features of the mental disorder of my 
friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary 
occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from 
chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. 
The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more 
ghastly hue — but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone 
out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no 



74 poe's tales 

more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, 'habitu- 
ally characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, 
when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with 
some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the 
necessary courage. At times, again, I was obhged to resolve all 
into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him 
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the pro- 
foundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It 
was no wonder that his condition terrified — that it infected 
me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, 
the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive super- 
stitions. 

It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of 
the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline 
within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such 
f eeUngs. Sleep came not near my couch — while the hours 
waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervous- 
ness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe 
that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering 
influence of the gloomy furniture of the room — of the dark 
and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the 
breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the 
walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. 
But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradu- 
ally pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very 
heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this ofiE 
with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, 
and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the cham- 
ber, hearkened — I know not why, except that an instinctive 
spirit prompted me — to certain low and indefinite sounds which 
came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew 
not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, 
unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with 
haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night), 
and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 75 

into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through 
the apartment. 

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a hght step 
on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently^ 
recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he 
rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing 
a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan — 
but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes — 
an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His 
air appalled me — but anything was preferable to the solitude 
which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence 
as a relief. 

"And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after 
having stared about him for some moments in silence — 
"you have not then seen it? — but, stay! you shall." 
Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he 
hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open 
to the storm. 

The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from 
our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful 
night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A 
whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; 
for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction 
of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which 
hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not 
prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity with which they 
flew careering from all points against each other, without passing 
away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding 
density did not prevent our perceiving this — yet we had no 
glimpse of the moon or stars — nor was there any flashing forth 
of the hghtning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses 
of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately 
around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly 
luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung 
about and enshrouded the mansion. 



76 poe's tales 

"You must not — you shall not behold this!" said I, shud- 
deringly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the 
window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder you, 
are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon — or it may 
be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the 
tarn. Let us close this casement; — the air is chilling and 
dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. 
I will read, and you shall Usten; — and so we will pass away this 
terrible night together." 

The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad 
Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite 
of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there 
is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could 
have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my 
friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; 
and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now 
agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history 
of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the 
extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have 
judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity with 
which he hearkened; or apparently hearkened, to the words of 
the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the 
success of my design. 

I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where 
Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peace- 
able admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to 
make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, 
the words of the narrative run thus: 

"And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now 
mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had 
drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, 
was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling .the rain upon his shoul- 
ders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, 
and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his 
gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and 
ripped, and tore all asimder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding 
wood alarumed and reverberated throughout the forest. " 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 77 

At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a 
moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once 
concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me) — it ap- 
peared to me that, from some very remote portion of the man- 
sion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, 
in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and 
dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which 
Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond 
doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; 
for, amid the ratthng of the sashes of the casements, and the 
ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the 
sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have inter- 
ested or disturbed me. I continued the story: 

"But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was 
sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; 
but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor, 
and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a 
floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with 
this legend enwritten — 

Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin; 
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win: 

And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, 
which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid 
and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears 
with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never 
before heard." 

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild 
amazement — for there could be no doubt whatever that, in 
this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction 
it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently 
distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or 
grating sound — the exact counterpart of what my fancy had 
already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as de- 
scribed by the romancer. 

Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this 
second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand 
conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were 



78 

predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid 
exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my 
companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed 
the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange altera- 
tion had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his de- 
meanor. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually 
brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of 
the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his fea- 
tures, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were mur- 
muring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast — 
yet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid 
opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The 
motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea — for he 
rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform 
sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed the 
narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded : 

"And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the 
dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of 
the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the 
way before him, and approached valourously over the silver pavement of 
the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not 
for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a 
mighty great and terrible ringing sound. " 

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than — as if a 
shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon 
a floor of silver — I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, 
and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Com- 
pletely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking 
movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in 
which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and 
throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. 
But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong 
shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about 
his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering 
murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely 
over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words. 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 79 

"Not hoar it? — yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long — 
long — long — many minutes, many hours, many days, have 
I heard it — yet I dared not — oh, pity me, miserable wretch 
that I am! — I dared not — I dared not speak! We have put 
her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? 
I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the 
hollow coffin. I heard them — many, many days ago — yet I 
dared not — / dared not speak! And now — to-night — 
Ethelred — ha! ha! — the breaking of the hermit's door, and 
the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield! — 
say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron 
hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered 
archway of the vault! Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not 
be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my 
haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not 
distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? 
Madman!" — here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked 
out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul — 
"Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the 
door!" 

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had 
been found the potency of a spell — the huge antique panels to 
which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, 
their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rush- 
ing gust — but then without those doors there du) stand the 
lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. 
There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some 
bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For 
a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon 
the threshold, then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward 
upon the person of her brother, and, in her violent and now final 
death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to 
the terrors he had anticipated. 

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. 
The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself 



8o poe's tales 

crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path 
a wild hght, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could 
have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone 
behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and 
blood-red moon which now shone vividly through that once 
barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as 
extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, 
to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened — 
there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind — the entire orb of 
the satellite burst at once upon my sight — my brain reeled as 
I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder — there was a long 
tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters 
— and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and 
silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher." 



THE TELL-TALE HEART 

True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had 
been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The 
disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not 
dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I 
heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many 
things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Harken! and observe 
how healthily — how calmly I can teU you the whole story. 

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; 
but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object 
there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old 
man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me 
insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! 
yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture — a pale blue 
eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood 
ran cold; and so by degrees — very gradually — I made up my 
mind to take the hfe of the old man, and thus rid myself of 
the eye forever. 

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know 
nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have 
seen how wisely I proceeded — ■ with what caution — with 
what foresight — with what dissimulation I went to work! 
I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week 
before I killed him. And every night, after midnight, I turned 
the latch of his door and opened it — oh so gently! And then, 
when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a 
dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no Hght shone out, and 
then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see 
how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly — very, very 
slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took 
me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far 

8i 



82 

that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! — would a 
madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head 
was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously — (for 
the hinges creaked) — I undid it just so much that a single thin 
ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long 
nights — every night just before midnight — but I found the 
eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; 
for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. 
And every morning^ when the day broke, I went boldly into 
the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by 
name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the 
night. So you see he would have been a very profound old 
man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I 
looked upon him while he slept. 

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in 
opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly 
than did mine. Never before that night, had I felt the extent 
of my own powers — of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain 
my feeling of triumph. To think that there I was, opening 
the door, Httle by Httle, and he not even to dream of my secret 
deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps 
he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. 
Now you may think that I drew back — but no. His room 
was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters 
were close fastened, through fear of robbers), and so I knew 
that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept push- 
ing it on steadily, steadily. 

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when 
my thumb sHpped upon the tin fastening, and the old man 
sprang up in bed, crying out — "Who's there?" 

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I 
did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I could not hear 
him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed Hstening; — 
just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death 
watches in the wall. 



THE TELL-TALE HEART 83 

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew that it was 
the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of 
grief — oh, no! — it was the low stifled sound that arises from 
the bottom of the soul when over-charged with awe. I knew 
the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the 
world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, 
with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say 
I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, 
although I chuckled .at heart. I knew that he had been lying 
awake ever since the first sHght noise, when he had turned in 
the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. 
He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. 
He had said to himself — "It is nothing but the wind in the 
chimney — it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "it is 
merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he 
had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: 
but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in 
approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before 
him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful 
influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel — • 
although he neither saw or heard — to feel the presence of my 
head within the room. 

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without 
hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little — a very, very 
little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it — you cannot 
imagine how stealthily, stealthily — until, at length a simple 
dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice 
and fell upon the vulture eye. 

It was open — wide, wide open — and I grew furious as I 
gazed upon it. I saw it with~^perfect distinctness — aU a dull 
blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow 
in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's 
face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, 
precisely upon the damned spot. 

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness 



84 poe's tales 

is but over-acuteness of the senses? — now, I say, there came 
to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes 
when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound too well. It 
was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, 
as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. 

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. 
I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could 
maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the helHsh tattoo 
of the heart increased. It grew quicker an^ quicker, and louder 
and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have 
been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! 
— do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: 
so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the 
dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this 
excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes 
longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, 
louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new 
anxiety seized me — the sound would be heard by a neighbor! 
The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open 
the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once — 
once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled 
the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed 
so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a 
muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not 
be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man 
was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, 
he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart 
and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He 
was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more. 

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when 
I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of 
the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in 
silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the 
head and the arms and the legs. 

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber 



THE TELL-TALE HEART 85 

and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced 
the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye — 
not even his — could have detected anything wrong. There 
was nothing to wash out — no stain of any kind — no blood- 
spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had 
caught all — ha! ha! 

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock 

— still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there 
came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it 
with a light heart, — for what had I now to fear? There 
entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect 
suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard 
by a neighbor during the night; suspicion of foul play had 
been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, 
and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises. 

I smiled, — for what had I to fear? I bade t^e gentlemen 
welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The 
old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my 
visitors all over the house. I bade them search — search 
well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them 
his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my 
confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them 
here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild 
audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the 
very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim. 

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. 
I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered 
cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I 
felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head 
ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat 
and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: — it 
continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to 
get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness 

— until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my 
ears. 



86 poe's tales 

No doubt I grew very pale; — but I talked more fluently, 
and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased — and 
what could I- do? It was a low, dull, quick sound — much 
such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I 
gasped for breath — and yet the officers heard it not. I 
talked more quickly — more vehemently; but the noise 
steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high 
key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily 
increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor 
to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the 
observations of the men — but the noise steadily increased. 
Oh God! what could I do? I foamed — I raved — I swore! I 
swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it 
upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually 
increased. It grew louder — louder — louder I And the men 
stiU chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard 
not? Almighty God! — no, no! They heard! — they sus- 
pected! — they knew ! — they were making a mockery of my 
horror! — this I thought, and this I think. But anything was 
better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than 
this derision! I could bear these hypocritical smiles no longer! 
I felt that I must scream or die! and now — again! — hark! 
louder! louder! louder! louder! 

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the 
deed! — tear up the planks! here, here! — it is the beating of 
his hideous heart!" 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 

The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No 
pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was 
its Avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. 
There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then pro- 
fuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet 
stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, 
were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from 
the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, 
progress and termination of the disease were the incidents of 
half an hour. 

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sa- 
gacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he sum- 
moned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends 
from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these 
retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. 
This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation 
of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and 
lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The 
courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers 
and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither 
of ingress or egress to tjie sudden impulses of despair or of 
frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. 
With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to 
contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In 
the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince 
had provided all the appHances of pleasure. There were 
buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, 
there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. 
All these and security were within. Without was the "Red 
Death." 

87 



8S poe's tales 

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his 
seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, 
that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at 
a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence. 

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first 
let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were 
seven — an imperial suite. In many places, however, such 
suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors 
slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view 
of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was 
very different; as might have been expected from the prince's 
love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly dis- 
posed that the vision embraced but Httle more than one at a 
time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty 
yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, 
in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window 
looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings 
of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose 
color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the deco- 
rations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the 
eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue — and- 
vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was 
purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes 
were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were 
the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with 
orange — the fifth with white — the sixth with violet. The 
seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapes- 
tries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling 
in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. 
But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to 
correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scar- 
let — a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apart- 
ments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion 
of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended 
from the roof. There was no Hght of any kind emanating 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 89 

from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in 
the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to 
each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that pro- 
jected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly il- 
lumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of 
gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black 
chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the 
dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in 
the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the counte- 
nances of those who entered that there were few of the company 
bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. 

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the 
western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung 
to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when 
the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was 
to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock 
a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly 
musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each 
lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained 
to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to 
the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolu- 
tions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay com- 
pany; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was ob- 
served that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and 
sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused 
revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, 
a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians 
looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervous- 
ness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, 
that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no 
similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, 
(which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of 
the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the 
clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness 
and meditation as before. 



90 poe's tales 

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent 
revel. The tastes of the prince were pecuHar. He had a fine 
eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere 
fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions 
glowed with barbaric lustre. There were some who would 
have 'thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. 
It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure 
that he was not. 

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments 
of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great Jete; and 
it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the 
masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were 
much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm — much 
of what has been since seen in "Hernani. " There were ara- 
besque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There 
were dehrious fancies such as the madman fashions. There 
was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the 
bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a Httle of that which 
might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers 
there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these — the 
dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, 
and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the 
echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock 
which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, 
all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The 
dreams are stiflf-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the 
chime die away — they have endured but an instant — and 
a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. 
And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe 
to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many 
tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. 
But to the chamber which Ues most westwardly of the seven, 
there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night 
is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the 
blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 9 1 

appalls; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, 
there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more 
solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who in- 
dulge in the more remote gayeties of the other apartments. 

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in 
them beat feverishly the heart of hfe. And the revel went 
whirHngly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of 
midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I 
have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; 
and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But 
now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the 
clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought 
crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful 
among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, per- 
haps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly 
sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd 
who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a 
masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single 
individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having 
spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from 
the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disap- 
probation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror, 
and of disgust. 

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may 
well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have 
excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade Hcense of 
the night was nearly unlimited ; but the figure in question had 
out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the 
prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts 
of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. 
Even with the utterly lost, to whom hfe and death are equally 
jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The 
whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the 
costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety 
existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from 



92 poe's tales 

head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which 
concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the coun- 
tenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must 
have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this 
might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers 
around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the 
type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood 
— and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was 
besprinkled with the scarlet horror. 

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral 
image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more 
fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) 
he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong 
shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow 
reddened with rage. 

"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who 
stood near him — "who dares insult us with this blasphemous 
mockery? Seize him and unmask him — that we may know 
whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!" 

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the 
Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang through- 
out the seven rooms loudly and clearly — for the prince was a 
bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the 
waving of his hand. 

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group 
of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a 
slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the 
intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, 
with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the 
speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the 
mad assumptions of the mimimer had inspired the whole 
party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; 
so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's 
person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, 
shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 93 

his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and meas- 
ured step which had distinguished him from the first, through 
the blue chamber to the purple — through the purple to the 
green — through the green to the orange — through this again 
to the white — and even thence to the violet, ere a decided 
movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, 
that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame 
of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through 
the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a 
deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn 
dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within 
three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having 
attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned sud- 
denly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry — 
and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon 
which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince 
Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a 
throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black 
apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood 
erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, 
gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements 
and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a 
rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. 

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. 
He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped 
the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and 
died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life 
of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. 
And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and 
Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all. 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM 

Impia tortorum longos hie turba furores 
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit. 
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro, 
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent. 
— Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected 
upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris. 

I was sick — sick unto death with that long agony; and 
when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, 
I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence — the 
dread sentence of death — was the last of distinct accentuation 
which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisi- 
torial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. 
It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution — perhaps from 
its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. This 
only for a brief period; for presently I heard no more. Yet, 
for a while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! 
I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me 
white — whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words 
— and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of 
their expression of firmness — of immovable resolution — of 
stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of 
what to me was Fate were still issuing from those lips. I saw 
them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the 
syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound suc- 
ceeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror, the 
soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies 
which enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my 
vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At 
first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white slender 
angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a 
most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in 

94 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM 95 

my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic bat- 
tery, while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with 
heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no 
help. And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical 
note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. 
The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long 
before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came 
at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the 
judges vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall 
candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; 
the blackness of darkness supervened; all sensations appeared 
swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. 
Then silence, and stillness, and night were the universe. 

I had swooned; but stiU wiU not say that all of consciousness 
was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to 
define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest 
slumber — no ! In delirium — no ! In a swoon — no ! In 
death — no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no 
immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of 
slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet 
in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we 
remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life 
from the swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of 
mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical, 
existence. It seems probable that if, upon reaching the second 
stage, we could recall the impressions of the first, we should 
find these impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. 
And that gulf is — -what? How at least shall we distinguish 
its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the impressions 
of what I have termed the first stage, are not, at will, recalled, 
yet, after a long interval, do they not come unbidden, while we 
marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned is not 
he who finds strange palaces and wildly famihar faces in coals 
that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad 
visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders 



g6 POE's tales 

over the perfume of some novel flower — is not he whose brain 
grows bewildered with the meaning of some musicg,! cadence 
which has never before arrested his attention. 

Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to remember; 
amid earnest struggles to regather some token of the state of 
seeming nothingness into which my soul had lapsed, there have 
been moments when I have dreamed of success; there have been 
brief, very brief periods when I have conjured up remembrances 
which the lucid reason of a later epoch assures me could have 
had reference only to that condition of seeming unconscious- 
ness. These shadows of memory tell, indistinctly, of tall 
figures that lifted and bore me in silence down — down — 
still down — till a hideous dizziness oppressed me at the mere 
idea of the interminableness of the descent. They tell also 
of a vague horror at my heart, on account of that heart's un- 
natural stillness. Then comes a sense of sudden motionless- 
ness throughout all things; as if those who bore me (a ghastly 
train!) had outrun, in their descent, the limits of the limitless, 
and paused from the wearisomeness of their toil. After this 
I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is mad- 
ness — the madness of a memory which busies itself among 
forbidden things. 

Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound 
— the tmnultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the 
sound of its beating. Then a pause in which aU is blank. 
Then again sound, and motion, and touch — a tingling sen- 
sation pervading my frame. Then the mere consciousness of 
existence, without thought — a condition which lasted long. 
Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering terror, and 
earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state. Then a 
strong desire to lapse into insensibiUty. Then a rushing revival 
of soul and a successful effort to move. And now a full 
memory of the trial, of the judges, of the sable draperies, of 
the sentence, of the sickness, of the swoon. Then entire 
forgetfulness of all that followed; of all that a later day and 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM 97 

much earnestness of endeavor have enabled me vaguely to 
recall. 

So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I lay upon my 
back, unbound. I reached out my hand, and it fell heavily 
upon something damp and hard. There I suffered it to remain 
for many minutes, while I strove to imagine where and what 
I could be. I longed, yet dared not to employ my vision. I 
dreaded the first glance at objects around me. It was not that 
I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast 
lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a wild 
desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst 
thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal 
night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The inten- 
sity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The at- 
mosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made 
effort to exercise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisito- 
rial proceedings, and attempted from that point to deduce 
my real condition. The sentence had passed; and it appeared 
to me that a very long interval of time had since elapsed. Yet 
not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead. Such 
a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is 
altogether inconsistent with real existence; — but where and 
in what state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, per- 
ished usually at the autos-da-fe, and one of these had been 
held on the very night of the day of my trial. Had I been 
remanded to my dungeon, to await the next sacrifice, which 
would not take place for many months? This I at once saw 
could not be. Victims had been in immediate demand. More- 
over, my dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo, 
had stone floors, and light was not altogether excluded. 

A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon 
my heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into- 
insensibihty. Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet, 
trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly 
above and around me in aU directions. I felt nothing; yet 



go POE S TALES 

dreaded to move a step, lest I should be impeded by the walls 
of a tomb. Perspiration burst from every pore, and stood in 
cold, big beads upon my forehead. The agony of suspense 
grew at length intolerable, and I cautiously moved forward, 
with my arms extended, and my eyes straining from their 
sockets, in the hope of catching some faint ray of light. I 
proceeded for many paces; but still all was blackness and 
vacancy. I breathed more freely. It seemed evident that 
mine was not, at least, the most hideous of fates. 

And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, 
there came thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague 
rumors of the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had 
been strange things narrated — fables I had always deemed 
them — but yet strange, and too ghastly to repeat, save in 
a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in this sub- 
terranean world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more 
fearful, awaited me? That the result would be death, and a 
death of more than customary bitterness, I knew too well the 
character of my judges to doubt. The mode and the hour 
were all that occupied or distracted me. 

My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid 
obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry — 
very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with 
all the careful distrust with which certain antique narratives 
had inspired me. This process, however, afforded me no 
means of ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; as I 
might make its circuit, and return to the point whence I set 
out, without being aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform 
seemed the wall. I therefore sought the knife which had been 
in my pocket, when led into the inquisitorial chamber; but 
it was gone; my clothes had been exchanged for a wrapper 
of coarse serge. I had thought of forcing the blade in some 
minute crevice of the masonry, so as to identify my point of 
departure. The difficulty, nevertheless, was but trivial; 
although, in the disorder of my fancy, it seemed at first in- 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM 99 

superable. I tore a part of the hem from the robe and placed 
the fragment at full length, and at right angles to the wall. 
In groping my way around the prison I could not fail to en- 
counter this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least 
I thought: but I had not counted upon the extent of. the 
dungeon, or upon my own weakness. The ground was moist 
and slippery. I staggered onward for some time, when I 
stumbled and fell. My excessive fatigue induced me to 
remain prostrate; and sleep soon overtook me as I lay. 

Upon awaking, and stretching forth an arm, I found beside 
me a loaf and a pitcher with water. I was too much exhausted 
to reflect upon this circumstance, but ate and drank with 
avidity. Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the 
prison, and with much toil came at last upon the fragment of 
the serge. Up to the period when I fell I had counted fifty-two 
paces, and, upon resuming my walk, I had counted forty- 
eight more; — when I arrived at the rag. There were in all, 
then, a hundred paces ; and, admitting two paces to the yard, 
I presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. I had 
met, however, with many angles in the wall, and thus I could 
form no guess at the shape of the vault; for vault I could not 
help supposing it to be. 

I had little object — certainly no hope — in these researches; 
but a vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quit- 
ting the wall, I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. 
At first, I proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor, al- 
though seemingly of solid material, was treacherous with slime. 
At length, however, I took courage, and did not hesitate to 
step firmly; endeavoring to cross in as direct a line as possible. 
I had advanced some ten or twelve paces in this manner, when 
the remnant of the torn hem of my robe became entangled 
between my legs. I stepped on it and fell violently on my face. 

In the confusion attending my fall, I did not immediately 
apprehend a somewhat startHng circumstance, which yet, in 
a few seconds afterward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested 



lOO POE S TALES 

my attention. It was this — my chin rested upon the floor 
of the prison, but my lips and the upper portion of my head, 
although seemingly at a less elevation than the chin, touched 
nothing. At the same time my forehead seemed bathed in a 
clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of decayed fungus arose 
to my nostrils. I put forward my arm, and shuddered to find 
that I had fallen at the very brink of a circular pit, whose ex- 
tent, of course, I had no means of ascertaining at the moment. 
Groping about the masonry just below the margin, I succeeded 
in dislodging a small fragment, and let it fall into the abyss. 
For many seconds I hearkened to. its reverberations as it dashed 
against the sides of the chasm in its descent; at length there 
was a sullen plunge into water, succeeded by loud echoes. 
At the same moment there came a sound resembling the quick 
opening, and as rapid closing of a door overhead, while a faint 
gleam of light flashed suddenly through the gloom, and as 
suddenly faded away. 

I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and 
congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I 
had escaped. Another step before my fall, and the world 
had seen me no more. And the death just avoided, was of 
that very character which I had regarded as fabulous and friv- 
olous in the tales respecting the Inquisition. To the victims 
of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst 
physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral hor- 
rors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering 
my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of 
my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting sub- 
ject for the species of torture which awaited me. 

Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall; 
resolving there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the 
wells, of which my imagination now pictured many in various 
positions about the dungeon. In other conditions of mind 
I might have had courage to end my misery at once by a 
plunge into one of these abysses; but now I was the veriest 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM 1 01 

of cowards. Neither could I forget what I had read of these 
pits — that the sudden extinction of Hfe formed no part of 
their most horrible plan. 

Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours; 
but at length I again slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by 
my side, as before, a loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning 
thirst consumed me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught. 
It must have been drugged; for scarcely had I drunk, before 
I became irresistibly drowsy. A deep sleep fell upon me — 
a sleep like that of death. How long it lasted, of course, I 
know not; but when, once again, I unclosed my eyes, the ob-, 
jects around me were visible. By a wild, sulphurous lustre, 
the origin of which I could not at first determine, I was en- 
abled to see the extent and aspect of the prison. 

In its size I had been greatly mistaken. The whole cir- 
cuit of its walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For some 
minutes this fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble; 
vain indeed! for what could be of less importance, under the 
terrible circumstances which environed me, than the mere 
dimensions of my dungeon? But my soul took a wild interest 
in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for the 
error I had committed in my measurement. The truth at 
length flashed upon me. In my first attempt at exploration 
I had counted fifty- two paces, up to the period when I fell; 
I must then have been within a pace or two of the fragment of 
serge; in fact, I had nearly performed the circuit of the vault. 
'I then slept, and, upon awaking, I must have returned upon my 
steps — thus supposing the circuit nearly double what it 
actually was. My confusion of mind prevented me from ob- 
serving that I began my tour with the wall to the left, and 
ended it with the wall to the right. » 

I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the 
enclosure. In feeHng my way I had found many angles, 
and thus deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the 
effect of total darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or 



102 POE's tales 

sleep! The angles were simply those of a few slight depres- 
sions, or niches, at odd intervals. The general shape of the 
prison was square. What I had taken for masonry seemed now 
to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates, whose sutures 
or joints occasioned the depression. The entire surface of 
this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous 
and repulsive devices to which the charnel superstition of 
the monks has given rise. The figures of fiends in aspects of 
menace, with skeleton forms, and other more really fearful 
images, overspread and disfigured the walls. I observed that 
the outlines of these monstrosities were sufficiently distinct, 
but that the colors seemed faded and blurred, as if from the 
effects of a damp atmosphere. I now noticed the floor, too, 
which was of stone. In the centre yawned the circular pit 
from whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the only one in the 
dungeon. 

All this I saw distinctly and by much effort: for my personal 
condition had been greatly changed during slumber. I now 
lay upon my back, and at full length, on a species of low frame- 
work of wood. To this I was securely bound by a long strap 
resembHng a surcingle. It passed in many convolutions 
about my limbs and body, leaving at liberty only my head, and 
my left arm to such extent that I could, by dint of much exer- 
tion, supply myself with food from an earthen dish which lay 
by my side on the floor. I saw, to my horror, that the pitcher 
had been removed. I say to my horror; for I was consumed 
with intolerable thirst. This thirst it appeared to be the 
design of my persecutors to stimulate: for the food in the dish 
was meat pungently seasoned. 

Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. It 
was some thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much 
as the side walls. In one of its panels a very singular figure 
riveted my whole attention. It was the painted figure of 
Time as he is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a 
scythe, he held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM 103 

pictured image of a huge pendulum such as we see on antique 
clocks. There was something, however, in the appearance of 
this machine which caused me to regard it more attentively. 
While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position was im- 
mediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. 
In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep 
was brief, and of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, 
somewhat in fear, but more in wonder. Wearied at length 
with observing its dull movement, I turned my eyes upon the 
other objects in the cell. 

A slight noise attracted my notice, and, looking to the 
floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it. They had 
issued from the well, which lay just within view to my right. 
Even then, while I gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, 
with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the meat. From 
this it required much efifort and attention to scare them away. 

It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour, 
(for I could take but imperfect note of time) before I again 
cast my eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and 
amazed me. The sweep of the pendulimi had increased in 
extent by nearly a yard. As a natural consequence, its veloc- 
ity was also much greater. But what mainly disturbed me 
was the idea that it had perceptibly descended. I now observed 
— with what horror it is needless to say — that its nether 
extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about 
a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the 
under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor 
also, it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into 
a solid and broad structure above. It was appended to a 
weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through 
the air. 

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by monk- 
ish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had be- 
come known to the inquisitorial agents — the pit whose hor- 
rors had been destined for so bold a recusant as myself — the 



104 poe's tales 

pit, typicaf of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule 
of all their punishments. The plunge into this pit I had avoided 
by the merest of accidents, and I knew that surprise, or entrap- 
ment into torment, formed an important portion of all the 
grotesquerie of these dungeon deaths. Having failed to fall, 
it was no part of the demon plan to hurl me into the abyss; 
and thus (there being no alternative) a different and a milder 
destruction awaited me. Milder! I half smiled in my agony 
as I thought of such application of such a term. 

What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more 
than mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of 
the steel! Inch by inch — hne by Hne — with a descent only 
appreciable at intervals that seemed ages — down and still 
down it came! Days passed — it might have been that many 
days passed — ere it swept so closely over me as to fan me with 
its acrid breath. The odor of the sharp steel forced itself 
into my nostrils. I prayed — I wearied heaven with my prayer 
for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and 
struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the 
fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling 
at the ghttering death, as a child at some rare bawble. 

There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief; 
for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible 
descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for 
I knew there- were demons who took note of my swoon, and 
who could have arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon 
my recovery, too, I felt very — oh, inexpressibly sick and 
weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid the agonies 
of that period, the human nature craved food. With painful 
efifort I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds permitted, 
and took possession of the small remnant which had been spared 
me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, there 
rushed to my mind a half formed thought of joy — of hope. 
Yet what business had / with hope? It was, as I say, a half- 
formed thought — man has many such which are never com- 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM 105 

pleted. I felt that it was of joy — of hope; but I felt also 
that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to 
perfect — to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated 
all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile — an 
idiot. 

The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my 
length. I saw that the crescent was designed to cross the 
region of the heart. It would fray the serge of my robe — 
it would return and repeat its operations — again — again 
and again. Notwithstanding its terrifically wide sweep (some 
thirty feet or more) and the hissing vigor of its descent, suffi- 
cient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of 
my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would accom- 
plish. And at this thought I paused. I dared not go farther 
than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity of 
attention — as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest here the descent 
of the steel. I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the 
crescent as it should pass across the garment — upon the pe- 
culiar thrilling sensation which the friction of cloth produces 
on the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my 
teeth were on edge. 

Down — steadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure 
in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To the 
right — to the left — far and wide — with the shriek of a 
damned spirit; to my heart with the stealthy pace of the 
tiger! I alternately laughed and howled as the one or the 
other idea grew predominant. 

Down — certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within 
three inches of my bosom! I struggled violently, furiously, to 
free my left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the 
hand. I could reach the latter, from the platter beside me, 
to my mouth, with great effort, but no farther. Could I 
have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I would have 
seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as 
well have attempted to arrest an avalanche! 



io6 poe's tales 

Down — still unceasingly — still inevitably down! I gasped, 
and struggled at each vibration. I shrank convulsively at 
its every sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward 
whirls with the eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; 
they closed themselves spasmodically at the descent, al- 
though death would have been a relief, oh! how unspeakable! 
Still I quivered in every nerve to think how slight a sinking 
of the machinery would precipitate that keen, gHstening axe 
upon my bosom. It was hope that prompted the nerve to 
quiver — the frame to shrink. It was hope — the hope that 
triumphs on the rack — that whispers to the death-condemned 
even in the dungeons of the Inquisition. 

I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the 
steel in actual contact with my robe, and with this obser- 
vation there suddenly came over my spirit all the keen, col- 
lected calmness of despair. For the first time during many 
hours — or perhaps days — I thought. It now occurred to 
me thkt the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped me, was 
unique. I was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke 
of the razor-like crescent athwart any portion of the band, 
would so detach it that it might be unwound from my person 
by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in that case, 
the proximity of the steel! The result of the slightest struggle 
how deadly! Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of 
the torturer had not foreseen and provided for this possibility! 
Was it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom in the 
track of the pendulum? Dreading to find my faint, and, as 
it seemed, my last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head 
as to obtain a distinct view of my breast. The surcingle 
enveloped my limbs and body close in all directions — save 
in the path of the destroying crescent. 

Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original 
position, when there flashed upon my mind what I cannot 
better describe than as the unformed half of that idea of 
deliverance to which I have previously alluded, and of which 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM I07 

a moiety only floated indeterminately through my brain 
when I raised food to my burning lips. The whole thought 
was now present — feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite, — 
but still entire. I proceeded at once, with the nervous energy 
of despair, to attempt its execution. 

For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework 
upon which I lay, had been literally swarming with rats. They 
were wild, bold, ravenous; their red eyes glaring upon me as 
if they waited but for motionlessness on my part to make me 
their prey. "To what food," I thought, "have they been 
accustomed in the well?" 

They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent 
them, all but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. I 
had fallen into an habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about 
the platter; and, at length, the unconscious uniformity of the 
movement deprived it of effect. In their voracity the vermin 
frequently fastened their sharp fangs in my fingers. With 
the particles of the oily and spicy viand which now remained, 
I thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I could reach it; 
then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay breathlessly 
still. 

At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at 
the change — at the cessation of movement. They shrank 
alarmedly back; many sought the well. But this was only 
for a moment. I had not counted in vain upon their voracity. 
Observing that I remained without motion, one or two of the 
boldest leaped upon the framework, and smelt at the surcingle. 
This seemed the signal for a general rush. Forth from the 
well they hurried in fresh troops. They clung to the wood — 
they overran it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person. 
The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them not 
at all. Avoiding its strokes, they busied themselves with the 
anointed bandage. They pressed — they swarmed upon me 
in ever accumulating heaps. They writhed upon my throat; 
their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their 



io8 poe's tales 

thronging pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name, 
swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy clamminess, my 
heart. Yet one minute, and I felt ihat the struggle would 
be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. 
I knew that in more than one place it must be already severed. 
With a more than human resolution I lay still. 

Nor had I erred in my calculations — nor had I endured in 
vain. I at length felt that I was free. The surcingle hung in 
ribands from my body. But the stroke of the pendulum 
already pressed upon my bosom. It had divided the serge 
of the robe. It had cut through the linen beneath. Twice 
again it swung, and a sharp sense of pain shot through every 
nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave of 
my hand my deliverers hurried tumultuously away. With a 
steady movement — cautious, sidelong, shrinking, and slow 
— I slid from the embrace of the bandage and beyond the reach 
of the scimitar. For the moment, at least, / was free. 

Free! — and in the grasp of the Inquisition! I had scarcely 
stepped from my wooden bed of horror upon the stone floor 
of the prison, when the motion of the hellish machine ceased 
and I beheld it drawn up, by some invisible force, through the 
ceiling. This was a lesson which I took desperately to heart. 
My every motion was undoubtedly watched. Free ! — I had but 
escaped death in one form of agony, to be delivered unto worse 
than death in some other. With that thought I rolled my 
eyes nervously around on the barriers of iron that hemmed me 
in. Something unusual — some change which, at first, I 
could not appreciate distinctly — it was obvious, had taken 
place in the apartment. For many minutes of a dreamy and 
trembling abstraction I busied myself in vain, unconnected 
conjecture. During this period, I became aware, for the 
first time, of the origin of the sulphurous light which illumined 
the ceU. It proceeded from a fissure, about half an inch in 
width, extending entirely around the prison at the base of 
the walls, which thus appeared, and were, completely separated 



THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM IO9 

from the floor. I endeavored, but of course in vain, to look 
through the aperture. 

As I arose from the attempt, the mystery of the alteration 
in the chamber broke at once upon my understanding. I 
have observed that, although the outlines of the figures upon 
the walls were sufficiently distinct, yet the colors seemed 
blurred and indefinite. These colors had now assumed, and 
were momentarily assuming, a starthng and most intense 
brilliancy, that gave to the spectral and fiendish portraitures 
an aspect that might have thrilled even firmer nerves than 
my own. Demon eyes, of a wild and ghastly vivacity, glared 
upon me in a thousand directions, where none had been visible 
before, and gleamed with the lurid lustre of a fire that I could 
not force my imagination to regard as unreal. 

Unreal! — Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils 
the breath of the vapor of heated iron! A suffocating odor 
pervaded the prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in 
the eyes that glared at my agonies! A richer tint of crimson 
diffused itself over the pictured horrors of blood. I panted! 
I gasped for breath! There could be no doubt of the 
design of my tormentors — oh! most unrelenting! oh! most 
demoniac of men! I shrank from the glowing metal to the 
centre of the cell. Amid the thought of the fiery destruction 
that impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over 
my soul Uke balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my 
straining vision below. The glare from the enkindled roof 
illumined its inmost recesses. Yet, for a wild moment, did 
my spirit refuse to comprehend the meaning of what I saw. 
At length it forced — it wrestled its way into my soul — it 
burned itself in upon my shuddering reason. — Oh! for a voice 
to speak! — oh! horror! — oh! any horror but this! With a 
shriek, I rushed from the margin, and buried my face in my 
hands — : weeping bitterly. 

The heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, 
shuddering as with a fit of the ague. There had been a second 



no poe's tales 

change in the cell — and now the change was obviously in the 
form. As before, it was in vain that I, at first, endeavored to 
appreciate or understand what was taking place. But not 
long was I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial vengeance had 
been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be no 
more dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been 
square. I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute — 
two, consequently, obtuse. The fearful difference quickly 
increased with a low rumbling or moaning sound. In an 
instant the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lozenge. 
But the alteration stopped not here — I neither hoped nor 
desired it to stop. I could have clasped the red walls to my 
bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any 
death but that of the pit! " Fool! might I not have known that 
into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me? 
Could I resist its glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its 
pressure? And now, flatter and flatter grew the lozenge, with 
a rapidity that left me no time for contemplation. Its centre, 
and, of course, its greatest width, came just over the yawning 
gulf. I shrank back — but the closing walls pressed me 
resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and writhing 
body there was no longer an inch of foothold. on the firm floor 
of the prison. I struggled no more, but the agony of my soul 
found vent in one loud, long, and final scream of despair. I 
felt that I tottered upon the brink — I averted my eyes — 
There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was 
a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating 
as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An 
outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the 
abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army 
had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its 
enemies. 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 

The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; nor 

are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, 

profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth m them 

greater than the well of Democritus. 

— Joseph Glanmll. 

We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For 
some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak. 

"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided 
you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about 
three years past, there happened to me an event such as never 
happened before to mortal man — or at least such as no man 
ever survived to tell of — and the six hours of deadly terror 
which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You 
suppose me a very old man — but I am not. It took less than 
a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, 
to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I 
tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. 
Do you know I can scarcely look over this cliff without get- 
ting giddy?" 

The " Httle cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown 
himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung 
over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his 
elbow on its extreme and slippery edge — this "little cliff" 
arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, 
some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags 
beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a 
dozen yards of its brink. In truth so deeply was I excited by 
the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length 
upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not 
even glance upward at the sky — while I struggled in vain to 
divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the 



112 POE'S tales 

mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was 
long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit 
up and look out into the distance. 

"You must get over these fancies," said the guide, "for I 
have brought you here that you might have the best possible 
view of the scene of that event I mentioned — and to tell you 
the whole story with the spot just under your eye. 

"We are now," he continued, in that particularizing manner 
which distinguished him — "we are now close upon the Nor- 
wegian coast — in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude — in the 
great province of Nordland — and in the dreary district of 
Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top we sit is Helseggen, 
the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher — hold on 
to the grass if you feel giddy — so — and look out, beyond the 
belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea." 

I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose 
waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the 
Nubian geographer's account of the Mare Tenebrarum. A 
panorama more deplorably desolate no human imagination 
can conceive. To the right and left, as far as the eye could 
reach, there lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines 
of horridly black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom 
was but the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared 
high up against it its white and ghastly crest, howHng and 
shrieking forever. Just opposite the promontory upon whose 
apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or six miles 
out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-looking island; or, 
more properly, its position was discernible through the wilder- 
ness of surge in which it was enveloped. About two miles 
nearer the land, arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy 
and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster 
of dark rocks. 

The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more 
distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about 
it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing land- 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM II3 

ward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double- 
reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of 
sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only 
a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction — 
as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there 
was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks. 

"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called 
by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. 
That a mile to the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Mesen, 
Hoeyholm, Kieldholm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off 
— between Moskoe and Vurrgh — are Otterholm, Flimen, 
Sandfiesen, and Skarholm. These. are the true names of the 
places — but why it has been thought necessary to name them 
at all, is more than either you or I can understand. Do you 
hear anything? Do you see any change in the water? " 

We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Hel- 
seggen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, 
so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst 
upon us from the summit. As the old man spoke, I became 
aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moan- 
ing of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and 
at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the 
chopping character of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly chang- 
ing into a current which set to the eastward. Even while I 
gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each 
moment added to its speed — to its headlong impetuosity. In 
five minutes the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into 
ungovernable fury; but it was between Moskoe and the coast 
that the main uproar held its sway. Here the vast bed of the 
waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting chan- 
nels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion — heaving, boil- 
ing, hissing — gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, 
and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity 
which .water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous 
descents. 



114 poe's tales 

In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another 
radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more 
smooth, and the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while 
prodigious streaks of foam became apparent where none had 
been seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a 
great distance, and entering into combination, took unto them- 
selves the gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed 
to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly — very 
suddenly — this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a 
circle of more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl 
was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no 
particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrififc funnel, 
whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, 
shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at 
an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and 
round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth 
to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as 
not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its 
agony to Heaven. 

The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock 
rocked. I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant 
herbage in an excess of nervous agitation. 

"This," said I at length, to the old man — "this can be 
nothing else than the great whirlpool of the Maelstrom." 

"So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call 
it the Moskoe-strom, from the island of Moskoe in the midway." 

The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means pre- 
pared me for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is 
perhaps the most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the 
faintest conception either of the magnificence, or of the horror 
of the scene — or of the wild bewildering sense of the novel 
which confounds the beholder. I am not sure from what point 
of view the writer in question surveyed it, nor at what time; 
but it could neither have been from the summit of Helseggen, 
nor during a storm. There are some passages of his descrip- 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM II5 

tion, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details, 
although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an 
impression of the spectacle. 

"Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the 
water is between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other 
side, toward Ver (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to 
afford a convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of 
spHtting on the rocks, which happens even in the calmest 
weather. When it is flood, the stream runs up the country 
between Lofoden and Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity; but 
the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equalled by the 
loudest and most dreadful cataracts; the noise being heard 
several leagues off, and the vortices or pits are of such an extent 
and depth, that if a ship comes within its attraction, it is in- 
evitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom, and there 
beat to pieces against the rocks; and when the water relaxes, 
the fragments thereof are thrown up again. But these intervals 
of tranquillity are only at the turn of the ebb and flood, and in 
calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violence 
gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and 
its fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within 
a Norway mile of it. Boats, yachts, and ships have been 
carried away by not guarding against it before they were within 
its reach. It likewise happens frequently, that whales come 
too near the stream, and are overpowered by its violence; and 
then it is impossible to describe their bowlings and bellowings 
in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves. A bear 
once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught 
by the stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as 
to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after 
being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and torn to 
such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly 
shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they 
are whirled to and fro. This stream is regulated by the flux 
and reflux of the sea — it being constantly high and low water 



ii6 

every six hours. In the year 1645, early in the morning of 
Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such noise and impetuosity 
that the very stones of the houses on the coast fell to the 
ground." 

In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this 
could have been ascertained at aU in the immediate vicinity of 
the vortex. The "forty fathoms" must have reference only 
to portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe 
or Lofoden. The depth in the centre of the Moskoe-strom 
must be immeasurably greater; and no better proof of this 
fact is necessary than can be obtained from even the sidelong 
glance into the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the 
highest crag of Helseggen. Looking down from this pinnacle 
upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling 
at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, 
as a matter difficult of behef, the anecdotes of the whales and 
the bears; for it appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, 
that the largest ships of the line in existence, coming within the 
influence of that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a 
feather the hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once. 

The attempts to account for the phenomenon — some of 
which, I remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in 
perusal — now wore a very different and unsatisfactory aspect. 
The idea generally received is that this, as well as three smaller 
vortices among the Feroe Islands, "have no other cause than 
the collision of waves rising and falling, at flux and reflux, 
against a ridge of rocks and shelves, which confines the water so 
that it precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher 
the flood rises, the deeper must the fall be, and the natural 
result of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of 
which is sufficiently known by lesser experiments." — These 
are the words of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Kircher and 
others imagine that in the centre of the channel of the Mael- 
strom is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in some 
very remote part — the Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM I17 

decidedly named in one instance. This opinion, idle in itself, 
was the one to which, as I gazed, my imagination most readily 
assented; and, mentioning it to the guide, I was rather sur- 
prised to hear him say that, although it was the view almost 
universally entertained of the subject by the Norwegians, it 
nevertheless was not his own. As to the former notion he 
confessed his inability to comprehend it; and here I agreed with 
him — for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes altogether 
unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of the abyss. 

"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old 
man, "and if you will creep around this crag, so as to get in its 
lee, and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that 
will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe- 
strom." 

I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded. 

" Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged 
smack of about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the 
habit of fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to 
Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at 
proper opportunities, if one has only the courage to attempt it; 
but among the whole of the Lofoden coastmen, we three were 
the only ones who made a regular business of going out to the 
islands, as I tell you. The usual grounds are a great way lower 
down to the southward. There fish can be got at all hours, 
without much risk, and therefore these places are preferred. 
The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only 
yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that 
we often got in a single day, what the more timid of the craft 
could not scrape together in a week. In fact, we made it a 
matter of desperate speculation — the risk of life standing 
instead of labor and courage answering for capital. 

"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the 
coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take 
advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main 
channel of the Moskoe-strom, far above the pool, and then drop 



ii8 

down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sand- 
flesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here 
we used to remain until nearly time for slack water again, when 
we weighed and made for home. We never set out upon this 
expedition without a steady side wind for going and coming — 
one that we felt sure would not fail us before our return — and 
we seldom made a mis-calculation upon this point. Twice, 
during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor on 
account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about 
here; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, 
starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after 
our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to be thought 
of. Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea 
in spite of everything, (for the whirlpools threw us round and 
round so violently, that, at length, we fouled our anchor and 
dragged it) if it had not been that we drifted into one of the 
innumerable cross currents — here to-day and gone to-morrow 
— which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where, by good luck, 
we brought up. 

"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we 
encountered ' on the ground ' — it is a bad spot to be in, even 
in good weather — but we made shift always to run the gauntlet 
of the Moskoe-strom itself without accident ; although at times 
my heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a 
minute or so behind or before the slack. The wind sometimes 
was not as strong as we thought it at starting, and then we 
made rather less way than we could wish, while the current 
rendered the smack unmanageable. My eldest brother had a 
son eighteen years old, and I had two stout boys of my own. 
These would have been of great assistance at such times, in 
using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing — but, some- 
how, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart 
to let the young ones get into the danger — for, after all said 
and done, it was a horrible danger, and that is the truth. 

"It is now within a few days of three years since what I am 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM II9 

going to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth of July, 18 — , 
a day which the people of this part of the world will never for- 
get — for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane 
that ever came out of the heavens. And yet all the morning, 
and indeed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and 
steady breeze from the south-west, while the sun shone brightly, 
so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen 
what was to follow. 

"The three of us — my two brothers and myself — had 
crossed over to the islands about two o'clock p.m., and soon 
nearly loaded the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, 
were more plenty that day than we had ever known them. It 
was just seven, by my watch, when we weighed and started for 
home, so as to make the worst of the Strom at slack water, 
which we knew would be at eight. 

"We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and 
for some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of 
danger, for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend 
it. All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over 
Helseggen. This was most unusual — something that had 
never happened to us before — and I began to feel a Kttle 
uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We put the boat on 
the wind, but could make no headway at all for the eddies, and 
I was upon the point of proposing to return to the anchorage, 
when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a 
singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing 
velocity. 

"In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell 
away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every 
direction. This state of things, however, did not last long 
enough to give us time to think about it. In less than a minute 
the storm was upon us — in less than two the sky was entirely 
overcast — and what with this and the driving spray, it became 
suddenly so dark that we could not see each other in the smack. 

"Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describ- 



I20 poe's tales 

ing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything 
like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly 
took us; but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board 
as if they had been sawed off — the mainmast taking with it my 
youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety. 

"Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat 
upon water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small 
hatch near the bow, and this hatch it had always been our 
custom to batten down when about to cross the Strom, by way 
of precaution against the chopping seas. But for this circum- 
stance we should have foundered at once — for we lay entirely 
buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped 
destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of 
ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail 
run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow 
gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt 
near the foot of the foremast. It was mere instinct that 
prompted me to do this — which was undoubtedly the very 
best thing I could have done — for I was too much flurried to 
think. 

"For some moments w^e were completely deluged, as I say, 
and all this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When 
I could stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still 
keeping hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. 
Presently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does 
in coming out of the water, and thus rid herself, in some meas- 
ure, of the seas. I was now trying to get the better of the stupor 
that had come over me, and to collect my senses so as to see 
what was to be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It 
was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had 
made sure that he was overboard — but the next moment all 
this joy was turned into horror — for he put his mouth close to 
my ear, and screamed out the word 'Moskoe-strom!' 

"No one will ever know what my feelings were at that 
moment. I shook from head to foot as if I had had the most 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 121 

violent fit of the ague. I knew what he meant by that one 
word well enough — I knew what he wished to make me under- 
stand. With the wind that now drove us on, we were bound 
for the whirl of the Strom, and nothing could save us! 

"You perceive that in crossing the Strom channel, ^e always 
went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest 
weather, and then had to wait and watch carefully for the 
slack — but now we were driving right upon the pool itself, 
and in such a hurricane as this! 'To be sure,' I thought, 'we 
shall get there just about the slack — there is some httle hope 
in that' — but in the next moment I cursed myself for being so 
great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that 
we were doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship. 

"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, 
or perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, 
but at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by 
the wind, and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute 
mountains. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. 
Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch, but 
nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of 
clear sky — as clear as I ever saw — and of a deep bright blue — 
and through it there blazed forth the full moon with a lustre 
that I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything 
about us with the greatest distinctness — but, oh God, what a 
scene it was to fight up! 

"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother — 
but in some manner which I could not understand, the din had 
so increased that I could not make him hear a single word, 
although I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Pres- 
ently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held up 
one of his fingers, as if to say 'listen!' 

"At first I could not make out what he meant — but soon a 
hideous thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from 
its fob. It was not going. I glanced at its face by the moon- 
light, and then burst into tears as I flung it far away into the 



122 POe's tales 

ocean. It had run down at seven o^clockl We were behind the 
time of the slack, and the whirl of the Strom was in full fury! 

"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep 
laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem 
always to. slip from beneath her — which appears very strange 
to a landsman — and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase. 

"Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but 
presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the 
counter, and bore us with it as it rose — up — up — as if into 
the sky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise 
so high. And then down we came with a sweep, a sUde, and a 
plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling 
from some lofty mountain-top in a dream. But while we were 
up I had thrown a quick glance around — and that one glance 
was all-sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The 
Moskoe-strom whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead 
ahead — but no more like the every-day Moskoe-strom, than 
the whirl as you now see it, is like a mill-race. If I had not 
known where we were, and what we had to expect, I should not 
have recognized the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily 
closed my eyes in horror. The Hds clenched themselves to- 
gether as if in a spasm. 

"It could not have been more than two rninutes afterwards 
until we suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped 
in foam. The boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and 
then shot off in its new direction Hke a thunderbolt. At the 
same moment the roaring noise of the water was completely 
drowned in a kind of shrill shriek — such a sound as you might 
imagine given out by the water-pipes of many thousand steam- 
vessels, letting off their steam all together. We were now in 
the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, 
of course, that another moment would plunge us into the 
abyss — down v/hich we could only see indistinctly on account 
of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The 
boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 1 23 

an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard 
side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of 
ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between 
us and the horizon. 

"It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very 
jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only 
approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I 
got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at 
first. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves. 

"It may look like boasting — but what I tell you is truth — 
I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such 
a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a 
consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful 
a manifestation of God's power. I do beheve that I blushed 
with shame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little 
while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the 
whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even 
at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was 
that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore 
about the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were 
singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such extremity — 
and I have often thought since, that the revolutions of the 
boat around the pool might have rendered me a Httle light- 
headed. 

"There was another circimistance which tended to restore my 
self-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind, which 
could not reach us in our present situation — for, as you saw 
yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general 
bed of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high, 
black, mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a 
heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of mind 
occasioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, 
deafen and strangle you, and take away all power of action or 
reflection. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these 
annoyances — just as death-condemned felons in prisons are 



124 POE's tales 

allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is 
yet uncertain. 

"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to 
say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying 
rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the 
middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible 
inner edge. All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. 
My brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty water- 
cask which had been securely lashed under the coop of the 
counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been 
swept overboard when the gale first took us. As we approached 
the brink of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and made for 
the ring, from which, in the agony of his terror, he endeavored 
to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both 
a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him 
attempt this act — although I knew he was a madman when 
he did it — a raving maniac through sheer fright. I did not 
care, however, to contest the point with him. I knew it could 
make no difference whether either of us held on at all; so I let 
him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask. This there was 
no great difficulty in doing; for the smack flew round steadily 
enough, and upon an even keel — only swaying to and fro, 
with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely 
had I secured myself in my new position, when we gave a wild 
lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. I 
muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was 
over. 

"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinc- 
tively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my eyes. 
For some seconds I dared not open them — while I expected 
instant destruction, and wondered that I was not already in 
my death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment 
elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased; and 
the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before 
while in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 1 25 

more along. I took courage and looked once again upon the 
scene. 

"Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and ad- 
miration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to 
be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior 
surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, 
and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for 
ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun 
around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot 
forth, as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid 
the clouds which I have already described, streamed in a flood 
of golden glory along the black walls, and far away down into 
the inmost recesses of the abyss. 

"At first I was too much confused to observe anything 
accurately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that 
I beheld. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze 
fell instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to 
obtain an unobstructed view, from the manner in which the 
smack hung on the inclined surface of the pool. She was quite 
upon an even keel — that is to say, her deck lay in a plane 
parallel with that of the water — but this latter sloped at an 
angle of more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be 
lying upon our beam-ends. I could not help observing, never- 
theless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my 
hold and footing in this situation, than if we had been upon a 
dead level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which 
we revolved. 

"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of 
the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, 
on account of a thick mist in which everything there was en- 
veloped, and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like 
that narrow and tottering bridge which Mussulmans say is the 
only pathway between Time and Eternity. This mist, or 
spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great 
walls of the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom — 



126 poe's tales 

but the yell that went up to the Heavens from out of that mist, 
I dare not attempt to describe. 

"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam 
above, had carried us to a great distance down the slope; but 
our farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round 
and round we swept — not with any uniform movement — but 
in dizzying swings and jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few 
hundred feet — sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the 
whirl. Our progress downward, at each revolution, was slow, 
but very perceptible. 

"Looking about me upon the wide waste of Uquid ebony on 
which we were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not 
the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and 
below us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of build- 
ing timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such 
as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. 
I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had 
taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow 
upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. 
I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous 
things that floated in our company. I must have been deliri- 
ous — for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the 
relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam 
below. 'This fir tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will 
certainly be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and 
disappears,' — and then I was disappointed to find that the 
wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook it and went down 
before. At length, after making several guesses of this nature, 
and being deceived in all — this fact — the fact of my invariable 
miscalculation, set me upon a train of reflection that made my 
limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily once more. 

"It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn 
of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, 
and partly from present observation. I called to mind the 
great variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 1 27 

Lofoden, having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the 
Moskoe-strom. By far the greater number of the articles were 
shattered in the most extraordinary way — so chafed and 
roughened as to have the appearance of being stuck full of 
spHnters — but then I distinctly recollected that there were. 
some of theni which were not disfigured at all. Now I could not 
account for this difference except by supposing that the rough- 
ened fragments were the only ones which had been completely 
absorbed — • that the others had entered the whirl at so late a 
period of the tide, or, from some reason, had descended so 
slowly after entering, that they did not reach the bottom before 
the turn of the flood came, or of the ebb, as the case might be. 
I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might thus 
be whirled up again to the level of the ocean, without under- 
going the fate of those which had been drawn in more early or 
absorbed more rapidly. I made, also, three important obser- 
vations. The first was, that as a general rule, the larger the 
bodies were, the more rapid their descent; — the second, that, 
between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical, and the 
other of any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was 
with the sphere; — the third, that, between two masses of equal 
size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape, the 
cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I 
have had several conversations on this subject with an old 
school-master of the district ; and it was from him that I learned 
the use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to 
me — although I have forgotten the explanation — how what 
I observed was, in fact, the natural consequence of the forms of 
the floating fragments, and showed me how it happened that a 
cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more resistance to its 
suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty than an equally 
bulky body, of any form whatever.* 

"There was one startling circumstance which went a great 
way in enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious 
* See Archimedes, De Us Qua in Humido Vehuntur, lib. ii. 



128 poe's tales 

to turn them to account, and this was that, at every revolution, 
we passed something hke a barrel, or else the yard or the mast 
of a vessel, while many of these things, which had been on our 
level when I j&rst opened my eyes upon the wonders of the 
whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have 
moved but Httle from their original station. 

"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself 
securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose 
from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. 
I attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the 
floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my 
power to make him understand what I was about to do. I 
thought at length that he comprehended my design — but, 
whether this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, 
and refused to move from his station by the ring-bolt. It was 
impossible to force him; the emergency admitted of no delay; 
and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his fate, fastened 
myself to the cask by means of the lashings which secured it to 
the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the sea, with- 
out another moment's hesitation. 

"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As 
it is myself who now tell you this tale — as you see that I did 
escape — and as you are already in possession of the mode in 
which this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate 
all that I have farther to say — I will bring my story quickly to 
conclusion. It might have been an hour, or thereabout, after 
my quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast 
distance beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in 
rapid succession, and, bearing my loved brother with it, plunged 
headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of foam below. 
The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than 
half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot 
at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place 
in the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the 
vast funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyra- 



A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 1 29 

tions of the whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By 
degrees, the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom 
of the guK seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the 
winds had gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly 
in the west, when I found myself on the surface of the ocean, in 
full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the 
pool of the Moskoe-strom had been. It was the hour of the 
slack — but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from 
the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the 
channel of the Strom, and in a few minutes, was hurried down 
the coast into the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked 
me up — exhausted from fatigue — and (now that the danger 
was removed) speechless from the memory of its horror. Those 
who drew me on board were my old mates and daily companions 
— but they knew me no more than they would have known a 
traveller from the spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven- 
black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They say, 
too, that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. 
I told them my story — they did not believe it. I now tell it 
to you — and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it 
than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden." 



THE GOLD-BUG 

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad! 
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula. 

— All in the Wrong. 

Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. 
William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, 
and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had 
reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent 
upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his fore- 
fathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near 
Charleston, South CaroHna. 

This Island is a very singular one. It consists of little 
else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its 
breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is sepa- 
rated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing 
its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite 
resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be sup- 
posed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magni- 
tude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort 
Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, 
tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston 
dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; 
but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, 
and a Hne of hard, white beach on the seacoast, is covered with 
a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized 
by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often at- 
tains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost 
impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance. 

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the 
eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built 
himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere 

130 



THE GOLD-BUG 13 1 

accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into 
friendship — for there was much in the recluse to excite in- 
terest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual 
powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject 
to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. 
He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. 
His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering 
along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells 
or entomological specimens ; — his collection of the latter 
might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these ex- 
cursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called 
Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of the 
family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by 
promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attend- 
ance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." It is 
not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him 
to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil 
this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision 
and guardianship of the wanderer. 

The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom 
very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed 
when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of 
October, i8 — , there occurred, however, a day of remarkable 
chilHness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the 
evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for 
several weeks — my residence being, at that time, in Charles- 
ton, a distance of nine miles from the Island, while the facili- 
ties of passage and re-passage were very far behind those of 
the present day. Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was 
my custom, and, getting no reply, sought for the key where I 
knew it was secreted, unlocked the door and went in. A fine 
fire was blazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by 
no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an overcoat, took an 
arm-chair by the crackling logs, and awaited patiently the 
arrival of my hosts. 



132 poe's tales 

Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial 
welcome. Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about 
to prepare some marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one 
of his fits — how else shall I term them? — of enthusiasm. He 
had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and, 
more than this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter's 
assistance, a scarabceus which he believed to be totally new, 
but in respect to which he wished to have my opinion on the 
morrow. 

"And why not to-night?" I asked, rubbing my hands 
over the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of scarahcei at the 
devil. 

"Ah, if I had only known you were here!" said Legrand, 
"but it's so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee that 
you would pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I 

was coming home I met Lieutenant G , from the fort, 

and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug; so it will be impossible 
for you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and 
I will send Jup down for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing 
in creation!" 

"What? — sunrise?" 

"Nonsense! no! — the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color 
— about the size of a large hickory-nut — with two jet black 
spots near one extremity of the back, and another, somewhat 
longer, at the other. The antenna are — " 

"Dey aint no tin in him Massa Will, I keep a tellin on you," 
here interrupted Jupiter; "de bug is a goole-bug, solid, ebery 
bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing — neber feel half so 
hebby a bug in my life. " 

"Well, suppose it is, Jup," repHed Legrand, somewhat more 
earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, "is that 
any reason for your letting the birds burn? The color" — 
here he turned to me — "is really almost enough to warrant 
Jupiter's idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre 
than the scales emit — but of this you cannot judge till to- 



THE GOLD-BUG 133 

morrow. In the meantime I can give you some idea of the 
shape." Saying this, he seated himself at a small table, on 
which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He looked for some 
in a drawer, but found none. 

"Never mind," said he at length, "this will answer;" and 
he drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to 
be very dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing 
with the pen. While he did this, I retained my seat by the 
fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he 
handed it to me without rising. As I received it, a low growl 
was heard, succeeded by a scratching at the door. Jupiter 
opened it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, 
rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with 
caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous 
visits. When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, 
and, to speak the truth, found myself not a little puzzled at 
what my friend had depicted. 

"Well!" I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, 
"this is SL strange scarabcBus, I must confess: new to me: 
never saw anything like it before — unless it was a skull, or 
a death's-head — which it more nearly resembles than anything 
else that has come under my observation." 

"A death's-head!" echoed Legrand — "Oh — yes — well, it 
has something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. 
The two upper black spots look like eyes, eh? and the longer 
one at the bottom like a mouth — and then the shape of the 
whole is oval." 

"Perhaps so," said I; "but, Legrand, I fear you are no 
artist. I must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form 
any idea of its personal appearance. " 

"Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw 
tolerably — should do it at least — have had good masters, 
and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead." 

"But, my dear fellow, you are joking then," said I, "this is 
a very passable skull — indeed, I may say that it is a very 



134 poe's tales 

excellent skull, according to the vulgar notions about such 
specimens of physiology — and your scarahceus must be the 
queerest scarahceus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we 
may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. 
I presume you will call the bug scarahceus caput hominis, 
or something of that kind — there are many similar titles in 
the Natural Histories. But where are the antennce you spoke 
of?" 

"The antennce!^' said Legrand, who seemed to be getting 
unaccountably warm upon the subject; "I am sure you must 
see the antennce. I made them as distinct as they are in the 
original insect, and I presume that is sufficient." 

"Well, well," I said, "perhaps you have — still I don't see 
them;" and I handed him the paper without additional re- 
mark, not wishing to ruflfle his temper; but I was much sur- 
prised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me 
— and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively 
no antennce visible, and the whole did bear a very close resem- 
blance to the ordinary cuts of a death's-head. 

He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to 
crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual 
glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. 
In an instant his face grew violently red — in another as ex- 
cessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scrutinize 
the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took 
a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon 
a sea-chest in the farthest corner of the room. Here again he 
made an anxious examination of the paper; turning it in all 
directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly 
astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the 
growing moodiness of his temper by any comment. Presently 
he took from his coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper care- 
fully in it, and deposited both in a writing-desk, which he 
locked. He now grew more composed in his demeanor; but 
his original air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he 



THE GOLD-BUG I35 

seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the evening wore 
away he become more and more absorbed in revery, from which 
no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had been my intention 
to pass the night at the hut, as I had frequently done before, 
but, seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it proper to take 
leave. He did not press me to remain, but, as I departed, he 
shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality. 

It was about a month after this (and during the interval 
I had seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at 
Charleston, from his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good 
old negro look so dispirited, and I feared that some serious 
disaster had befallen my friend. 

"Well, Jup," said I, "what is the matter now? — how is 
your master?" 

"Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as 
mought be." 

"Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he 
complain of?" 

"Dar! dat's it! — him neber plain of notin — but him berry 
sick for all dat." 

''Very sick, Jupiter! — why didn't you say so at once? 
Is he conjEined to bed?" 

"No, dat he aint! — he aint find nowhar — dat's just whar 
de shoe pinch — my mind is got to be berry hebby bout poor 
Massa WiU." 

"Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are 
talking about. You say your master is sick. Hasn't he told 
you what ails him?" 

"Why, massa, taint worf while for to git mad bout de matter 
— Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him — but 
den what make him go bout looking dis here way, wid he head 
down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den 
he keep a syphon all de time — " 

"Keeps a what, Jupiter?" 

"Keeps a s3T)hon wid de figgurs on de slate — de queerest 



136 poe's tales 

figgurs I ebber did see. Ise gittin to be skeered, I tell you. 
Hab for to keep mighty tight eye pon him noovers. Todder 
day he gib me slip fore de sun up and was gone de whole ob 
de blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him 

d d good beating when he did come — but Ise sich a fool 

dat I hadn't de heart arter all — he look so berry poorly." 

"Eh? — what? — ah, yes! — upon the whole I think you 
had better not be too severe with the poor fellow — don't 
flog him, Jupiter — he can't very well stand it — but can you 
form no idea of what has occasioned this illness, or rather this 
change of conduct? Has anything unpleasant happened since 
I saw you? " 

"No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant smce den — 'twas 
fore den I'm feared — 'twas de berry day you was dare." 

"How? what do you mean?" 

"Why, massa, I mean de bug — dare now." 

"The what?" 

"De bug — I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit some- 
where bout de head by dat goole-bug." 

"And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposi- 
tion?" 

"Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sich 

a d d bug — he kick and he bite every ting what cum near 

him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go gin 
mighty quick, I tell you — den was de time he must ha got de 
bite. I didn't like de look ob de bug mouff, myself, no how, so 
I wouldn't take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him 
wid a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper 
and stuff piece ob it in he mouff — dat was de way." 

"And you think, then, that your master was really bitten 
by the beetle, and that the bite made him sick?" 

"I don't tink noffin about it — I nose it. What make him 
dream bout de goole so much, if taint cause he bit by de goole- 
bug? Ise heerd bout dem goole-bugs fore dis." 

"But how do you know he dreams about gold?" 



THE GOLD-BUG 137 

"How I know? why cause he talk about it in he sleep — 
dat's how I nose." 

"Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortunate 
circumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you 
to-day?" 

"What de matter, massa?" 

"Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand?" 

"No, massa, I bring dis here pissel;" and here Jupiter handed 
me a note which ran thus: 

My dear Why have I not seen you for so long a time? I hope 

you have not been so fooKsh as to take offence at any little brusquerie of 
mine; but no, that is improbable. 

Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I have something 
to tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I should tell it 
at all. 

I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup annoys 
me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions. Would you 
believe it? — he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to 
chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, among 
the hills on the mainland. I verily believe that my ill looks alone saved 
me a flogging. 

I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met. 

If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with Jupiter. 
Do come. I wish to see you tonight, upon business of importance. I 
assure you that it is of the highest importance. 

Ever yours, 

William Legrand. 

There was something in the tone of this note which gave 
me great uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from 
that of Legrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new 
crotchet possessed his excitable brain? What "business of the 
highest importance" could he possibly have to transact? 
Jupiter's account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the 
continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly un- 
settled the reason of my friend. Without a moment's hesi- 
tation, therefore, I prepared to accompany the negro. 

Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, 
all apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which 
we were to embark. 



138 poe's tales 

"What is the meaning of all this, Jup?" I inquired. 

"Him syfe, massa, and spade." 

"Very true; but what are they doing here?" 

"Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my 
buying for him in de town, and de debbil's own lot of money 
I had to gib for em." 

"But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your 
'Massa Will' going to do with scythes and spades?'* 

"Dat's more dan / know, and debbil take me if I don't 
blieve 't,is more dan he know, too. But it's all cum ob de bug. " 

Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, 
whose whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by "de bug," 
I now stepped into the boat and made sail. With a fair and 
strong breeze we soon ran into the little cove to the northward 
of Fort Moultrie, and' a walk of some two miles brought us to 
the hut. It was about three in the afternoon when we arrived. 
Legrand had been awaiting us in eager expectation. He 
grasped my hand, with a nervous empressement which alarmed 
me and strengthened the suspicions already entertained. His 
countenance was pale even to ghastliness, and his deep-set 
eyes glared with unnatural lustre. After some inquiries 
respecting his health, I asked him, not knowing what better 
to say, if he had yet obtained the scarahmis from Lieutenant 
G . 

"Oh, yes," he repHed, coloring violently, "I got it from him 
the next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part with 
that scarabcBus. Do you know that Jupiter is quite right about 
it?" 

"In what way?" I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart. 

"In supposing it to be a bug of real gold. " He said this with 
an air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked. 

"This bug is to make my fortune," he continued, with 
a triumphant smile, "to reinstate me in my family possessions. 
Is it any wonder, then, that I prize it? Since Fortune has 
thought fit to bestow it upon me, I have only to use it properly 



THE GOLD-BUG 1 39 

and I shall arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter, 
bring me that scarahaus!'' 

"What! de bug, massa? I'd rudder not go fer trubble dat 
bug — you mus git him for your own self." Hereupon Le- 
grand arose, with a grave and stately air, and brought me the 
beetle from a glass case in which it was enclosed. It was a 
beautiful scarabceus, and, at that time, unknown to naturalists 
— of course a great prize in a scientific point of view. There 
were two round, black spots near one extremity of the back, 
and a long one near the other. The scales were exceedingly 
hard and glossy, with all the appearance of burnished gold. 
The weight of the insect was very remarkable, and, taking all 
things into consideration, I could hardly blame Jupiter for 
his opinion respecting it; but what to make of Legrand's 
agreement with that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell. 

"I sent for you," said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when 
I had completed my examination of the beetle, "I sent for you, 
that I might have your counsel and assistance in furthering 
the views of Fate and of the bug — " 

"My dear Legrand," I cried, interrupting him, "you are 
certainly unwell, and had better use some little precautions. 
You shall go to bed, and I will remain with you a few days, 
until you get over this. You are feverish and — " 

"Feel my pulse," said he. 

I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest indi- 
cation of fever. 

"But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me 
this once to prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. 
In the next — " 

"You are mistaken," he interposed, "I am as well as I can 
expect to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you 
really wish me well, you will relieve this excitement. " 

"And how is this to be done?" 

"Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an ex- 
pedition into the hills, upon the mainland, and, in this expe- 



I40 poe's tales 

dition, we shall need the aid of some person in whom we can 
confide. You are the only one we can trust. Whether we 
succeed or fail, the excitement which you now perceive in me 
will be equally allayed." 

"I am anxious to oblige you in any way," I rephed; "but do 
you mean to say that this infernal beetle has any connection 
with your expedition into the hills? " 

"It has." 

"Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd 
proceeding." 

"I am sorry — very sorry — for we shall have to try it by 
ourselves." 

"Try it by yourselves! The man is surely mad! — but 
stay! — how long do you propose to be absent?" 

"Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be 
back, at all events, by sunrise." 

"And will you promise me, upon your honor, that when this 
freak of yours is over, and the bug business (good God!) settled 
to your satisfaction, you will then return home and follow my 
advice impHcitly, as that of your physician?" 

"Yes; I promise; and now let us be off, for we have no 
time to lose." 

With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started 
about four o'clock — Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. 
Jupiter had with him the scythe and spades — the whole of 
which he insisted upon carrying — more through fear, it 
seemed to me, of trusting either of the implements within 
reach of his master, than from any excess of industry or com- 
plaisance. His demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and 

"dat d d bug" were the sole words which escaped his 

lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a 
couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with 
the scarabcBus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit 
of whip-cord; twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjurer, 
as he went. When I observed this last, plain evidence of my 



THE GOLD-BUG I41 

friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears. 
I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for the 
present, or until I could adopt some more energetic measures 
with a chance of success. In the meantime I endeavored, but 
all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object of the expedi- 
tion. Having succeeded in inducing me to accompany him, 
he seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any topic of 
minor importance, and to all my questions vouchsafed no other 
reply than "We shall see!" 

We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of 
a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the 
mainland, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a 
tract of country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace 
of a human footstep was to be seen. Legrand led the way 
with decision; pausing only for an instant, here and there, 
to consult what appeared to be certain landmarks of his own 
contrivance upon a former occasion. 

In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and the 
sun was just setting when we entered a region infinitely more 
dreary than any yet seen. It was a species of table-land, near 
the summit of an almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded from 
base to pinnacle, and interspersed with huge crags that ap- 
peared to lie loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were 
prevented from precipitating themselves into the valleys below, 
merely by the support of the trees against which they reclined. 
Deep ravines, in various directions, gave an air of still sterner 
solemnity to the scene. 

The natural platform to which we had clambered was 
thickly overgrown with brambles, through which we soon dis- 
covered that it would have been impossible to force our way 
but for the scythe; and Jupiter, by direction of his master, 
proceeded to clear for us a path to the foot of an enormously 
tall tulip-tree, which stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon 
the level, and far surpassed them all, and all other trees which' 
I had then ever seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in 



142 

the wide spread of its branches, and in the general majesty of 
its appearance. When we reached this tree, Legrand turned 
to Jupiter, and asked him if he thought he could climb it. 
The old man seemed a little staggered by the question, and for 
some moments made no reply. At length he approached the 
huge trunk, walked slowly around it, and examined it with 
minute attention. When he had completed his scrutiny, he 
merely said, 

"Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in he life." 

"Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soon be 
too dark to see what we are about. " 

"How far mus go up, massa?" inquired Jupiter. 

" Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell you which 
way to go — and here — stop! take this beetle with you." 

"De bug, Massa Will! — de goole-bug!" cried the negro, 
drawing back in dismay — "what for mus tote de bug way up 
detree? — d — nif Ido!" 

"If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take 
hold of a harmless little dead beetle, why you can carry it up 
by this string — but, if you do not take it up with you in some 
way, I shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with 
this shovel." 

"What de matter now, massa?" said Jup, evidently shamed 
into compliance; "always want fur to raise fuss wid old nigger. 
Was only funnin anyhow. Me feered de bug! what I keer 
for de bug?" Here he took cautiously hold of the extreme 
end of the string, and, maintaining the insect as far from his 
person as circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend 
the tree. 

In youth, the tulip- tree, or Liriodendron Tulipifera, the most 
magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly 
smooth, and often rises to a great height without lateral 
branches; but, in its riper age, the bark becomes gnarled and 
uneven, while many short limbs make their appearance on the 
stem. Thus the difficulty of ascension, in the present case, 



THE GOLD-BUG I43 

lay more in semblance than in reality. Embracing the huge 
cylinder, as closely as possible, with his arms and knees, seizing 
with his hands some projections, and resting his naked toes 
upon others, Jupiter, after one or two narrow escapes from 
faUing, at length wriggled himself into the first great fork, and 
seemed to consider the whole business as virtually accom- 
plished. The risk of the achievement was, in fact, now over, 
although the climber was some sixty or seventy feet from the 
ground. 

"Which way mus go now, Massa Will?" he asked. 

"Keep up the largest branch — the one on this side," said 
Legrand. The negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently 
with but little trouble; ascending higher and higher, until no 
glimpse of his squat figure could be obtained through the 
dense foliage which enveloped it. Presently his voice was 
heard in a sort of halloo. 

"How much fudder is got for go?" 

"How high up are you?" asked Legrand. 

"Ebber so fur," replied the negro; "can see de sky fru de 
top ob de tree." 

"Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look 
down the trunk and count the limbs below you on this 
side. How many Umbs have you passed?" 

"One, two, tree, four, fibe — I done pass fibe big limb, 
massa, pon dis side. " 

"Then go one limb higher." 

In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing that 
the seventh limb was attained. 

"Now, Jup," cried Legrand, evidently much excited, "I 
want you to work your way out upon that limb as far as you 
can. If you see anything strange, let me know. " 

By this time what little doubt I might have entertained of 
my poor friend's insanity was put finally at rest. I had no 
alternative but to conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I 
became seriously anxious about getting him home. While 



144 poe's tales 

I was pondering upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's 
voice was again heard. 

"Mos feerd for to ventur pon dis limb berry far — 'tis 
dead limb putty much aU de way. " 

"Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter?" cried Legrand 
in a quavering voice. 

"Yes, massa, him dead as de door-nail — done up for sar- 
tain — done departed dis here life. " 

"What in the name of heaven shall I do?" asked Legrand, 
seemingly in the greatest distress. 

"Do!" said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose a word, 
"why come home and go to bed. Come now! — that's a 
fine fellow. It's getting late, and, besides, you remember 
your promise." 

"Jupiter," cried he, without heeding me in the least, "do 
you hear me?" 

"Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain." 

"Try the wood weU, then, with your knife, and see if you 
think it very rotten. " 

"Him rotten, massa, sure nuff," repHed the negro in a few 
moments, "but not so berry rotten as mought be. Mought 
ventur out leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat's true." 

"By yourself! — what do you mean?" 

"Why, I mean de bug. 'Tis herry hebby bug. Spose I 
drop him down fuss, and den de limb won't break wid just de 
weight ob one nigger." 

"You infernal scoundrel!" cried Legrand, apparently much 
relieved, "what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as 
that? As sure as you let that beetle fall! — I'll break your 
neck. Look here, Jupiter! do you hear me?" 

"Yes, massa, needn't hollo at poor nigger dat style." 

"Well! now listen! — if you will venture out on the limb 
as far as you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I'll 
make you a present of a silver dollar as soon as you get 
down. " 



THE GOLD-BUG 145 

"I'm gwine, Massa Will — deed I is," replied the negro very 
promptly — " mos out to the eend now. " 

^'Out to the end!" here fairly screamed Legrand, "do you say 
you are out to the end of that limb?" 

"Soon be to de eend, massa, — o-o-o-o-oh! Lor-gol-a- 
marcy! what is dis here pon de tree?" 

"Well!" cried Legrand, highly delighted, "what is it?" 

"Why taint nuffin but a skull — somebody bin lef him head 
up de tree, and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de meat off. " 

"A skull, you say! — very well! — how is it fastened to 
the Hmb? — what holds it on?" 

"Sure nuff, massa; mus look. Why, dis berry curous sar- 
cumstance, pon my word — dare's a great big nail in de skull, 
what fastens ob it on to de tree." 

"Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you — do you hear?" 

"Yes, massa." 

"Pay attention, then! — find the left eye of the skull." 

"Hum! hoo! dat's good! why, dar aint no eye lef at all." 

"Curse your stupidity! do you know your right hand from 
your left?" 

"Yes, I nose dat — nose all bout dat — 'tis my lef hand 
what I chops de wood wid." 

"To be sure! you are left-handed; and your left eye is on 
the same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose, you can find 
the left eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has 
been. Have you found it? " 

Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked, "Is de 
lef eye of de skull pon de same side as de lef hand of de skull, 
too? — cause de skull aint got not a bit ob a hand at all — ■ 
nebber mind! I got de lef eye now — here de lef eye! what 
mus do wid it?" 

"Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string will 
reach — but be careful and not let go your hold of the string." 

"All dat done, Massa Will; mighty easy ting for to put de 
bug fru de hole — look out for him dar below!" 



146 poe's tales 

During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter's person could 
be seen; but the beetle, which he had suffered to descend, was 
now visible at the end of the string, and gHstened, Hke a globe of 
burnished gold, in the last rays of the setting sun, some of which 
still faintly illumined the eminence upon which we stood. The 
scarahcBus hung quite clear of any branches, and, if allowed to 
fall, would have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately took . 
the scythe, and cleared with it a circular space, three or four 
yards in diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having accom- 
plished this, ordered Jupiter to let go the string and come down 
from the tree. 

Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the 
precise spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced 
from his pocket a tape measure. Fastening one end of this 
at that point of the trunk of the tree which was nearest the 
peg, he unrolled it till it reached the peg, and thence farther 
unrolled it, in the direction already established by the two 
points of the tree and the peg, for the distance of fifty feet — 
Jupiter clearing away the brambles with the scythe. At the 
spot thus attained a second peg was driven, and about this, as 
a centre, a rude circle, about four feet in diameter, described. 
Taking now a spade himself, and giving one to Jupiter and one 
to me, Legrand begged us to set about digging as quickly as 
possible. 

To speak the truth, I had no especial reUsh for such amuse- 
ment at any time, and, at that particular moment, would most 
willingly have decUned it; for the night was coming on, and I 
felt much fatigued with the exercise already taken; but I saw 
no mode of escape, and was fearful of disturbing my poor friend's 
equanimity by a refusal. Could I have depended, indeed, 
upon Jupiter's aid, I would have had no hesitation in attempt- 
ing to get the lunatic home by force; but I was too well assured 
of the old negro's disposition, to hope that he would assist me, 
under any circumstances, in a personal contest with his master. 
I made no doubt that the latter had been infected with some 



THE GOLD-BUG 147 

of the innumerable Southern superstitions about money buried, 
and that his phantasy had received confirmation by the finding 
of the scarabcBus, or, perhaps, by Jupiter's obstinacy in main- 
taining it to be "a bug of real gold." A mind disposed to 
lunacy would readily be led away by such suggestions — es- 
pecially if chiming in with favorite preconceived ideas — and 
then I called to mind the poor fellow's speech about the beetle's 
being the "index of his fortune. " Upon the whole, I was sadly 
vexed and puzzled, but, at length, I concluded to make a virtue 
of necessity — to dig with a good will, and thus the sooner to 
convince the visionary, by ocular demonstration, of the fal- 
lacy of the opinions he entertained. 

The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal 
worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our 
persons and implements, I could not help thinking how pic- 
turesque a group we composed, and how strange and suspicious 
our labors must have appeared to any interloper who, by chance, 
might have stumbled upon our whereabouts. 

We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said; and 
our chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who 
took exceeding interest in our proceedings. He, at length, 
became so obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving the 
alarm to some stragglers in the vicinity; — or, rather, this was 
the apprehension of Legrand; — for myself, I should have 
rejoiced at any interruption which might have enabled me to 
get the wanderer home. The noise was, at length, very effec- 
tually silenced by Jupiter, who, getting out of the hole with a 
dogged air of deliberation, tied the brute's mouth up with one 
of his suspenders, and then returned, with a grave chuckle, to 
his task. 

When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a 
depth of five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became 
manifest. A general pause ensued, and I began to hope 
that the farce was at an end. Legrand, however, although 
evidently much disconcerted, wiped his brow thoughtfully 



148 poe's tales 

and recommenced. We had excavated the entire circle of four 
feet diameter, and now we shghtly enlarged the Hmit, and 
went to the farther depth of two feet. Still nothing appeared. 
The gold-seeker, whom I sincerely pitied, at length clambered 
from the pit, with the bitterest disappointment imprinted 
upon every feature, and proceeded, slowly and reluctantly, 
to put on his coat, which he had thrown off at the beginning of 
his labor. In the meantime I made no remark. Jupiter, at 
a signal from his master, began to gather up his tools. This 
done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in pro- 
found silence towards home. 

We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when, 
with a loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and seized 
him by the collar. The astonished negro opened his eyes and 
mouth to the fullest extent, let fall the spades, and fell upon 
his knees. 

"You scoundrel," said Legrand, hissing out the syllables 
from between his clenched teeth — "you infernal black villain! 
— speak, I tell you! — answer me this instant, without pre- 
varication! — which — which is your left eye?" 

"Oh, my golly, Massa Will! aint dis here my lef eye for 
sartain? " roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his 
right organ of vision, and holding it there with a desperate 
pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his master's attempt 
at a gouge. 

"I thought so! — I knew it! — hurrah!" vociferated Le- 
grand, letting the negro go, and executing a series of curvets 
and caracoles, much to the astonishment of his valet, who, 
arising from his knees, looked, mutely, from his master to my- 
self, and then from myself to his master. 

"Come! we must go back," said the latter, "the game's 
not up yet;" and he again led the way to the tulip-tree. 

"Jupiter," said he, when we reached its foot, "come here! 
Was the skull nailed to the limb with the face outward, or 
with the face to the limb?" 



THE GOLD-BUG I49 

"De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de 
eyes good, widout any trouble." 

'^Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you let 
the beetle fall?" — here Legrand touched each of Jupiter's 
eyes. 

"'Twas dis eye, massa — de lef eye — jis as you tell me," 
and here it was his right eye that the negro indicated. 

"That will do — we must try it again. " 

Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied 
that I saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg 
which m-arked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about 
three inches to the westward of its former position. Taking, 
now, the tape-measure from the nearest point of the trunk to 
the peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight 
line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed, 
by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging. 

Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in 
the former instance, was now described, and we again set to 
work with the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely 
understanding what had occasioned the change in my thoughts, 
I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. 
I had become most unaccountably interested — nay, even 
excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all the extrava- 
gant demeanor of Legrand — some air of forethought, or of 
deliberation, which impressed me. I dug eagerly, and now 
and then caught myself actually looking, with something that 
very much resembled expectation, for the fancied treasure, the 
vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. 
At a period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed 
me, and when we had been at work perhaps an hour and a half, 
we were again interrupted by the violent howHngs of the dog. 
His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been, evidently, but 
the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bit- 
ter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to 
muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and, leaping into the 



I50 

hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few 
seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two 
complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, 
and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woollen. One 
or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish 
knife, and, as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold 
and silver coin came to Hght. 

At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be re- 
strained, but the countenance of his master wore an air of 
extreme disappointment. He urged us, however, to continue 
our exertions, and the words were hardly uttered when I 
stumbled and fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot 
in a large ring of iron that lay half buried in the loose earth. 

We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes 
of more intense excitement. During this interval we had fairly 
unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect 
preservation and wonderful hardness, had plainly been sub- 
jected to some mineralizing process — perhaps that of the 
Bi-chloride of Mercury. This box was three feet and a half 
long, three feet broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was 
firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming 
a kind of treUis-work over the whole. On each side of the 
chest, near the top, were three rings of iron ^— six in all — by 
means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. 
Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer 
very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of 
removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of 
the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back 
— 'trembling and panting with anxiety. In an instant, a 
treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the 
rays of the lanterns fell within the pit, there flashed upwards, 
from a confused heap of gold and of jewels, a glow and a glare 
that absolutely dazzled our eyes. 

I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I 
gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand 



THE GOLD-BUG 151 

appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. 
Jupiter's countenance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a 
pallor as it is possible, in the nature of things, for any negro's 
visage to assume. He seemed stupefied — thunder-stricken. 
Presently he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his 
naked arms up to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, 
as if enjoying the luxury of a bath. At length, with a deep 
sigh, he exclaimed, as if in a soliloquy, 

"And dis all cum ob de goole-bug! de putty goole-bug! 
de poor Httle goole-bug, what I boosed in dat sabage kind ob 
style! Aint you shamed ob yourself, nigger? — answer me 
dat!" 

It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master 
and valet to the expediency of removing the treasure. It was 
growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we 
might get everything housed before daylight. It was difficult 
to say what should be done; and much time was spent in 
deliberation — so confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, 
lightened the box by removing two-thirds of its contents, when 
we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. 
The articles taken out were deposited among the brambles, 
and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter 
neither, upon any pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to open 
his mouth until our return. We then hurriedly made for home 
with the chest; reaching the hut in safety, but after excessive 
toil, at one o'clock in the morning. Worn out as we were, it 
was not in human nature to do more just then. We rested 
until two, and had supper; starting for the hills immediately 
afterwards, armed with three stout sacks, which, by good luck, 
were upon the premises. A little before four we arrived at the 
pit, divided the remainder of the booty, as equally as might 
be, among us, and, leaving the holes unfilled, again set out for 
the hut, at which, for the second time, we deposited our golden 
burdens, just as the first streaks of the dawn gleamed from over 
the tree-tops in the East. 



152 poe's tales 

We were now thoroughly broken down; but the intense 
excitement of the time denied us repose. After an unquiet 
slumber of some three or four hours' duration, we arose, as if 
by preconcert, to make examination of our treasure. 

The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole 
day, and the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of 
its contents. There had been nothing like order or arrange- 
ment. Everything had been heaped in promiscuously. Hav- 
ing assorted all with care, we found ourselves possessed of 
even vaster wealth than we had at first supposed. In coin 
there was rather more than four hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars — estimating the value of the pieces, as accurately as 
we could, by the tables of the period. There was not a particle 
of silver. All was gold of antique date and of great variety — 
French, Spanish, and Geraian money, with a few English 
guineas, and some counters, of which we had never seen speci- 
mens before. There were several very large and heavy coins, 
so worn that we could make nothing of their inscriptions. 
There was no American money. The value of the jewels we 
found more difficulty in estimating. There were diamonds — 
some of them exceedingly large and fine — a hundred and ten 
in all, and not one of them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable 
brilliancy; — three hundred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; 
and twenty-one sapphires, with an opal. These stones had 
all been broken from their settings and thrown loose in the 
chest. The settings themselves, which we picked out from 
among the other gold, appeared to have been beaten up with 
hammers, as if to prevent identification. Besides all this, 
there was a vast quantity of solid gold ornaments; — nearly 
two hundred massive finger and ear-rings; — rich chains 
— thirty of these, if I remember; — eighty-three very large 
and heavy crucifixes; — five gold censers of great value; — a 
prodigious golden punch-bowl, ornamented with richly chased 
vine-leaves and Bacchanalian figures; with two sword-handles 
exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller articles which I 



THE GOLD-BUG 1 53 

cannot recollect. The weight of these valuables exceeded 
three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this 
estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven 
superb gold watches; three of the nmnber being worth each 
five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and 
as time keepers valueless; the works having suffered more or 
less from corrosion — but all were richly jewelled and in cases 
of great worth. We estimated the entire contents of the chest, 
that night, at a milUon and a half of dollars; and, upon the 
subsequent disposal of the trinkets and jewels (a few being 
retained for our own use), it was found that we had greatly 
undervalued the treasure. 

When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and 
the intense excitement of the time had, in some measure, 
subsided, Legrand, who saw that I was dying with impatience 
for a solution of this most extraordinary riddle, entered into 
a full detail of all the circumstances connected with it. 

"You remember," said he, "the night when I handed you 
the rough sketch I had made of the scarahceus. You recollect 
also, that I became quite vexed at you for insisting that my 
drawing resembled a death's-head. When you first made this 
assertion I thought you were jesting; but afterwards I called 
to mind the peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and ad- 
mitted to myself that your remark had some little foundation 
in fact. Still, the sneer at my graphic powers irritated me 
— for I am considered a good artist — and, therefore, when 
you handed me the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple 
it up and throw it angrily into the fire." 

"The scrap of paper, you mean," said I. 

"No: it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first 
I supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, 
I discovered it, at once, to be a piece of very thin parchment. 
It was quite dirty, you remember. Well, as I was in the very 
act of crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which 
you had been looking, and you may imagine my astonishment 



154 poe's tales 

when I perceived, in fact, the figure of a death's-head just 
where, it seemed to me, I had made the drawing of the beetle. 
For a moment I was too much amazed to think with accuracy. 
I knew that my design was very different in detail from this 
— although there was a certain similarity in general outline. 
Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other end 
of the room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. 
Upon turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, 
just as I had made it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise 
at the really remarkable similarity of outline — at the singular 
coincidence involved in the fact that, unknown to me, there 
should have been a skull upon the other side of the parchment, 
immediately beneath my figure of the scarabceus, and that this 
skull, not only in outline, but in size, should so closely resemble 
my drawing. I say the singularity of this coincidence ab- 
solutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect of 
such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish a con- 
nection — a sequence of cause and effect — and, being unable 
to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But, when 
I recovered from this stupor, there dawned upon me gradually 
a conviction which startled me even far more than the coin- 
cidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that 
there had been no drawing on the parchment when I made my 
sketch of the scarabcBus. I became perfectly certain of this; 
for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other, 
in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, 
of course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed 
a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at 
that early moment, there seemed to ghmmer, faintly, within 
the most remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow- 
worm-like conception of that truth which last night's ad- 
venture brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I arose 
at once, and, putting the parchment securely away, dismissed 
all farther reflection until I should be alone. 

"When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, 



THE GOLD-BUG 15$ 

I betook myself to a more methodical investigation of the 
affair. In the first place I considered the manner in which 
the parchment had come into my possession. The spot where 
we discovered the scarahceus was on the coast of the main- 
land, about a mile eastward of the island, and but a short 
distance above high-water mark. Upon my taking hold of it, 
it gave me a sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, 
with his accustomed caution, before seizing the insect, which 
had flown towards him, looked about him for a leaf, or some- 
thing of that nature, by which to take hold of it. It was at 
this moment that his eyes, and mine also, fell upon the scrap 
of parchment, which I then supposed to be paper. It was 
lying half-buried in the sand, a corner sticking up. Near the 
spot where we found it, I observed the remnants of the hull of 
what appeared to have been a ship's long boat. The wreck 
seemed to have been there for a very great while; for the re- 
semblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced. 

"Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle 
in it, and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go 

home, and on the way met Lieutenant G . I showed him 

the insect, and he begged me to let him take it to the fort. 
On my consenting, he thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat 
pocket, without the parchment in which it had been wrapped, 
and which I had continued to hold in my hand during his in- 
spection. Perhaps he dreaded my changing my mind, and 
thought it best to make sure of the prize at once — you 
know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected with 
Natural History. At the same time, without being con- 
scious of it, I must have deposited the parchment in my own 
pocket. 

"You remember that when I went to the table, for the 
purpose of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper 
where it was usually kept. I looked in the drawer, and found 
none there. I searched my pockets, hoping to find an old 
letter — and then my hand fell upon the parchment. I thus 



156 poe's tales 

detail the precise mode in which it came into my possession; 
for the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force. 

"No doubt you will think me fanciful — but I had already 
established a kind of connection. I had put together two links 
of a great chain. There was a boat lying on a sea-coast, and 
not far from the boat was a parchment — not a paper — with 
a skull depicted on it. You will, of course, ask 'where is the 
connection?' I reply that the skull, or death's-head, is the 
well-known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death's- 
head is hoisted in all engagements. 

"I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper. 
Parchment is durable — almost imperishable. Matters of 
little moment are rarely consigned to parchment; since, for 
the mere ordinary purposes of drawing or writing, it is not 
nearly so well adapted as paper. This reflection suggested some 
meaning — some relevancy — in the death's-head, I did not 
fail to observe, also, the form of the parchment. Although 
one of its corners had been, by some accident, destroyed, it 
could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was just 
such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a memoran- 
dum — for a record of something to be long remembered and 
carefully preserved. " 

"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not upon 
the parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How 
then do you trace any connection between the boat and the 
skull — since this latter, according to your own admission, 
must have been designed (God only knows how or by whom) 
at some period subsequent to your sketching the scarabceus?'' 

"Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, 
at this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. 
My steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I 
reasoned, for example, thus: When I drew the scarabceus, 
there was no skull apparent on the parchment. When I 
had completed the drawing, I gave it to you, and observed 
you narrowly until you returned it. You, therefore, did not 



THE GOLD-BUG 1 57 

design the skull, and no one else was present to do it. Then it 
was not done by human agency. And nevertheless it was done. 

"At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, 
and did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident 
which occurred about the period in question. The weather 
was chilly (oh, rare and happy accident!), and a fire was blazing 
on the hearth. I was heated with exercise and sat near the 
table. You, however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. 
Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you were 
in the act of inspecting it. Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered, 
and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left hand you 
caressed him and kept him off, while your right, holding the 
parchment, w^as permitted to fall listlessly between your knees, 
and in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought 
the blaze had caught it, and was about to caution you, but, 
before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were engaged 
in its examination. When I considered all these particulars, 
I doubted not for a moment that heat had been the agent in 
bringing to light, on the parchment, the skull which I saw 
designed on it. You are well aware that chemical preparations 
exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of which it 
is possible to write on either paper or vellum, so that the 
characters shall become visible only when subjected to the 
action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and diluted with 
four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green 
tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, 
gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter in- 
tervals after the material written upon cools, but again become 
apparent upon the re-application of heat. 

"I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer 
edges — the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vel- 
lum — were far more distinct than the others. It was clear 
that the action of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. 
I immediately kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of 
the parchment to a glowing heat. At first, the only effect was 



158 poe's tales 

the strengthening of the faint lines in the skull; but, on per- 
severing in the experiment, there became visible, at the corner 
of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the death's- 
head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to 
be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it 
was intended for a kid." 

" Ha! ha!" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at 

you — a million and a half of 'money is too serious a matter 

for mirth — but you are not about to estabhsh a third Hnk in 

your chain — you will not find any especial connection between 

your pirates and a goat — pirates, you know, have nothing 

to do with goats; they appertain to the farming interest." 

"But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat." 

"Well a kid then — pretty much the same thing." 

"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You 

may have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked on the 

figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical 

signature. I say signature; because its position on the vellum 

suggested this idea. The death's-head at the corner diagonally 

opposite, had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. 

But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else — of the 

body to my imagined instrument — of the text for my context. " 

"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp 

and the signature. " 

"Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly 
impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune im- 
pending. I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was 
rather a desire than an actual behef ; — but do you know that 
Jupiter's silly words, about the bug being of soHd gold, had a 
remarkable effect on my fancy? And then the series of ac- 
cidents and coincidences — these were so very extraordinary. 
Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these events 
should have occurred on the sole day of all the year in which 
it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that with- 
out the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the pre- 



THE GOLD-BUG 1 59 

cise moment in which he appeared, I should never have become 
aware of the death's-head, and so never the possessor of the 
treasure?" 

"But proceed — I am all impatience." 

"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current 
— the thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, 
somewhere on the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. 
These rumors must have had some foundation in fact. And 
that the rumors have existed so long and so continuously could 
have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance 
of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd 
concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, 
the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present 
unvarying form. You will observe that the stories told are 
all about money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the 
pirate recovered his money, there the affair would have dropped. 
It seemed to me that some accident — say the loss of a memo- 
randum indicating its locality — had deprived him of the means 
of recovering it, and that this accident had become known to 
his followers, who otherwise might never have heard that 
treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves 
in vain, because unguided, attempts to regain it, had given first 
birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which are 
now so common. Have you ever heard of any important 
treasure being unearthed along the coast? " 

"Never." 

"But that'Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well 
known. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still 
held them; and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell 
you that I felt a hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that 
the parchment so strangely found involved a lost record of 
the place of deposit." 

"But how did you proceed?" 

"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the 
heat; but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that 



i6o poe's tales 

the coating of dirt might have something to do with the failure; 
so I carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over 
it, and, having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the 
skull downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted 
charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become thoroughly 
heated, I removed the sHp, and, to 'my inexpressible joy, 
found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be 
figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and 
suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off, 
the whole was just as you see it now." 

Here Legrand, having reheated the parchment, submitted 
it to my inspection. The following characters were rudely 
traced, in a red tint, between the death's-head and the goat: 

53ttt30S))6*;4826)4t)4l);8o6*;48t8lI6o))85;8;]*:t*8t83(88)5*t;46(;88*96 
*?;8)n(;485);S*t2:*t(;4956*2(5*— 4)8l[8*;4o69285);)6t8)4tJ;i(t9;48o8i;8:8 
Ji;48t8s;4)48stS288o6*8ia9;48;(88;4(t?34;48)4t;i6i;:i88;t?; 

"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the 
dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me 
on my solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be 
unable to earn them." 

"And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means so 
difficult as you might be led to imagine from the first hasty 
inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one 
might readily guess, form a cipher — that is to say, they con- 
vey a meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I 
could not suppose him capable of constructing any of the more 
abstruse cryptographs. I made up my mind, at once, that 
this was of a simple species — such, however, as would appear, 
to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without 
the key." 

"And you really solved it?" 

"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thou- 
sand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of 
mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may 



THE GOLD-BUG l6l 

well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an 
enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper 
appHcation, resolve. In fact, having once established con- 
nected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the 
mere difficulty of developing their import. 

"In the present case — indeed in all cases of secret writing 
— the first question regards the language of the cipher; for the 
principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple 
ciphers are concerned, depend on, and are varied by, the genius 
of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative 
but experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue 
known to him who attempts the solution, until the true one be 
attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty is 
removed by the signature. The pun upon the word 'Kid' is 
appreciable in no other language than the English. But for 
this consideration I should have begun my attempts with the 
Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this 
kind would most naturally have been written by a pirate of 
the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to 
be English. 

"You observe there are no divisions between the words. 
Had there been divisions, the task would have been compara- 
tively easy. In such case I should have commenced with a 
collation and analysis of the shorter words, and, had a word 
of a single letter occurred, as is most likely, (a or /, for ex- 
ample,) I should have considered the solution as assured. 
But, there being no division, my first step was to ascertain 
the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent. Count- 
ing all, I constructed a table, thus: 

Of the character ti there are 8 



Of the character 8 there are S3- 


; 


26. 


4 


19. 


$) 


16. 


* 


" 13- 


5 


" 12. 


6 


" II. 



o 

92 

■3 
? 



1 62 poe's tales 

"Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs 
is e. Afterwards the succession runs thus: aoidhnrstuy 
cfglmwbkpqxz. E, however, predominates so remark- 
ably that an individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, 
in which it is not the prevailing character. 

"Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the ground- 
work for something more than a mere guess. The general use 
which may be made of the table is obvious — but, in this 
particular cipher, we shall only very partially require its 
aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will commence 
by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To 
verify the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen 
often in couples — for e is doubled with great frequency in 
English — in such words, for example, as 'meet,' 'fleet,' 
'speed,' 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,' etc. In the present instance 
we see it doubled no less than five times, although the crypto- 
graph is brief. 

"Let us assume 8, then, as e. Now, of all words in the lan- 
guage, 'the' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there 
are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of 
collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions 
of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably represent 
the word 'the.' On inspection, we find no less than seven 
such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may, there- 
fore, assume that the semicolon represents t, that 4 represents 
h, and that 8 represents e — the last being now well confirmed. 
Thus a great step has been taken. 

"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to 
establish a vastly important point; that is to say, several 
commencements and terminations of other words. Let us 
refer, for example, to the last instance but one, in which the 
combination ;48 occurs — not far from the end of the cipher. 
We know that the semicolon immediately ensuing is the com- 
mencement of a word, and, of the six characters succeeding 
this 'the,' we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set 



THE GOLD-BUG 1 63 

these characters down, thus, by the letters we know them to 
represent, leaving a space for the unknown — 

t eeth. 

"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the Hh,^ as form- 
ing no portion of the word commencing with the first /; since, 
by experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to 
the vacancy, we perceive that no word can be formed of which 
this th can be a part. We are thus narrowed into 

t ee, 

and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we 
arrive at the word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We 
thus gain another letter, r, represented by (, with the words 
'the tree' in juxtaposition. 

"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again 
see the combination 148, and employ it by way of termination to 
what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement: 

the tree ;4(|?34 the, 
or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus: 

the tree thr t?3h the. 

"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave 
blank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus: 

the tree thr ... h the, 

when the word 'through^ makes itself evident at once. But 
this discovery gives us three new letters, 0, u and g, represented 
by t, ? and 3. 

"Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for com- 
binations of known characters, we find, not very far from the 
beginning, this arrangement: 

83(88, or egree, 

which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree,* and 
gives us another letter, d, represented by f. 



164 poe's tales 

"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the 
combination 

;46(;88* 

"Translating the known characters, and representing the 
unknown by dots, as before, we read thus: 

th . rtee . 

an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word ' thirteen, ' 
and again furnishing us with two new characters, i and n, 
represented by 6 and *. 

"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we 
find the combination, 

SoHt. 

"Translating, as before, we obtain 

. good, 

which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the first 
two words are ' A good. ' 

"To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, 
as far as discovered, in a tabular form. It will stand thus: 

5 represents a 
t " d 
8 " e 

3 " g 

4 " h 

6 " i 
* " n 
t " o 
( " r 

t 

"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important 
letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with 
the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince 
you that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give 
you some insight into the rationale of their development. But 
be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very 
simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give 



THE GOLD-BUG 165 

you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, 
as unriddled. Here it is: 

'"A good glass in the bishops s hostel in the deviVs seat twenty 
one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by jzorth main 
branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's- 
head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.'" 

"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition 
as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this 
jargon about 'devil's seats,' Meath's-heads, ' and 'bishop's 
hostel?'" 

"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears 
a serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My 
first endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural 
division intended by the cryptographist. " 

"You mean, to punctuate it?" 

"Something of that kind." 

"But how is it possible to effect this?" 

"I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run 
his words together without division, so as to increase the diffi- 
culty of solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing 
such an object, would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. 
When, in the course of his composition, he arrived at a break 
in his subject which would naturally require a pause, or a 
point, he would be exceedingly apt to run his characters, at 
this place, more than usually close together. If you will ob- 
serve the MS., in the present instance, you will easily detect 
five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting on this hint, I 
made the division thus: 

'"A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the DeviVs seat — 
twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes — northeast and by 
north — main branch seventh limb east side — shoot from the 
left eye of the death's-head — a bee-line from the tree through the 
shot fifty feet out. ' " 

"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark." 

" It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, " for a few days; 



i66 

during which I made dihgent inquiry, in the neighborhood of 
Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by the name of 
the 'Bishop's Hotel;' for, of course, I dropped the obsolete 
word 'hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject, I was 
on the point of extending my sphere of search, and proceed- 
ing in a more systematic manner, when, one morning, it entered 
into my head, quite suddenly, that this 'Bishop's Hostel' 
might have some reference to an old family, of the name of 
Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held possession of an 
ancient manor-house, about four miles to the northward of 
the Island. I accordingly went over to the plantation, and 
reinstituted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place. 
At length one of the most aged of the women said that she had 
heard of such a place as Bessop's Castle, and thought that she 
could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern, 
but a high rock. 

"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some 
demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We 
found it without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I pro- 
ceeded to examine the place. The 'castle' consisted of an 
irregular assemblage of cHffs and rocks — one of the latter 
being quite remarkable for its height as well as for its in- 
sulated and artificial appearance. I clambered to its apex, 
and then felt much at a loss as to what should be next done. 

"While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a nar- 
row ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below 
the summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about 
eighteen inches, and was not more than a foot wide, while a 
niche in the cliff just above it, gave it a rude resemblance to 
one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I 
made no doubt that here was the ' devil's-seat ' alluded to in 
the MS., and now I seemed to grasp the full secret of the 
riddle. 

"The 'good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing 
but a telescope; for the word 'glass' is rarely employed in any 



THE GOLD-BUG 167 

Other sense by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a tele- 
scope to be used, and a definite point of view, admitting no 
variation, from which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to beheve 
that the phrases 'twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,' 
and 'northeast and by north,' were intended as directions for 
the levelhng of the glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, 
I hurried home, procured a telescope, and returned to the rock. 

"I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was im- 
possible to retain a seat on it unless in one particular position. 
This fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to 
use the glass. Of course, the 'twenty-one degrees and thir- 
teen minutes' could allude to nothing but elevation above 
the visible horizon, since the horizontal direction was clearly 
indicated by the words, ' northeast and by north. ' This latter 
direction I at once estabHshed by means of a pocket-compass; 
then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of twenty-one 
degrees of elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it 
cautiously up or down, until my attention was arrested by a 
circular rift or opening in the foliage of a large tree that over- 
topped its fellows in the distance. In the centre of this rift 
I perceived a white spot, but could not, at first, distinguish 
what it was. Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again 
looked, and now made it out to be a human skull. 

"On this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the 
enigma solved; for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, 
east side,' could refer only to the position of the skull on the 
tree, while 'shoot from the left eye of the death's-head' ad- 
mitted, also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search 
for buried treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a 
bullet from the left eye of the skull, and that a bee-Une, or, 
in other words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest point 
of the trunk through 'the shot,' (or the spot where the bullet 
fell,) and thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would 
indicate a definite point — and beneath this point I thought 
it at least possible that a deposit of value lay concealed." 



i68 poe's tales 

"All this," I said, "is exceedingly clear, and, although in- 
genious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's 
Hotel, what then?" 

"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I 
turned homewards. The instant that I left 'the devil's seat,' 
however, the circular rift vanished ; nor could I get a glimpse of 
it afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief 
ingenuity in this whole business, is the fact (for repeated experi- 
ment has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening 
in question is visible from no other attainable point of view 
than that afforded by the narrow ledge on the face of the rock. 

"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been at- 
tended by Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some 
weeks past, the abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial 
care not to leave me alone. But, on the next day, getting up 
very early, I contrived to give him the slip, and went into the 
hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found it. When 
I came home at night my valet proposed to give me a flog- 
ging. With the rest of the adventure I believe you are as 
well acquainted as myself." 

"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first at- 
tempt at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the 
bug fall through the right instead of through the left eye of 
theskuU." 

"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two 
inches and a half in the ' shot ' — that is to say, in the position 
of the peg nearest the tree; and had the treasure been beneath 
the 'shot,' the error would have been of little moment; but 
the 'shot,' together with the nearest point of the tree, were 
merely two points for the establishment of a line of direction; 
of course the error, however trivial in the beginning, increased 
as we proceeded with the line, and, by the time we had gone 
fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my deep- 
seated convictions that treasure was here somewhere actually 
buried, we might have had all our labor in vain." 



THE GOLD-BUG 169 

"I presume the fancy of the skull — of letting fall a bullet 
through the skull's eye — was suggested to Kidd by the pi- 
ratical flag. No doubt he felt a kind of poetical consistency 
in recovering his money through this ominous insignium." 

"Perhaps so; still I cannot help thinking that common- 
sense had quite as much to do with the matter as poetical 
consistency. To be visible from the devil's-seat, it was neces- 
sary that the object, if small, should be white; and there is 
nothing like your human skull for retaining and even increasing 
its whiteness under exposure to all vicissitudes of weather." 

"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging 
the beetle — how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. 
And why did you insist on letting fall the bug, instead of a 
bullet, from the skull? " 

" Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your 
evident suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to 
punish you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober 
mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, and for 
this reason I let it fall from the tree. An observation of yours 
about its great weight suggested the latter idea." 

"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which 
puzzles me. What are we to make of the skeletons found 
in the hole?" 

"That is a question I am no more able to answer than 
yourself. There seems, however, only one plausible way 
of accounting for them — and yet it is dreadful to beheve in 
such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is clear that 
Kidd — if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I doubt 
not — it is clear that he must have had assistance in the 
labor. But, the worst of this labor concludedj he may have 
thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret. 
Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, 
while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required 
a dozen — who shall tell?" 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 

Nil sapientias odiosius acumine nimio. 

— Seneca. 

At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 
1 8 — , I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a 
meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in 
his little back library, or book closet, au troisieme, No. jj, Rue 
Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had 
maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual 
observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied 
with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere 
of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally dis- 
cussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversa- 
tion between us at an earher period of the evening: I mean the 
affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder 
of Marie Roget. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of 
a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown 

open and admitted our old acquaintance. Monsieur G , the 

Prefect of the Parisian police. 

We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as 
much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, 
and we had not seen him for several years. We had been 
sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of 
lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon 

G 's saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask 

the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had 
occasioned a great deal of trouble. 

"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as 
he forbore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better 
purpose in the dark." 

"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who 
170 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 17I 

had a fashion of calling everything "odd" that was beyond his 
comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of 
"oddities." 

"Very true," said Dupin, as he suppHed his visiter with a 
pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair. 

"And what is the difficulty now?" I asked. "Nothing more 
in the assassination way, I hope?" 

"Oh, no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business 
is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage 
it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would 
like to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd." 

"Simple and odd," said Dupin. 

"Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we 
have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, 
and yet baffles us altogether." 

"Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you 
at fault," said my friend. 

"What nonsense you do talk!" replied the Prefect, laughing 
heartily. 

"Perhaps the mystery is a Httle too plain," said Dupin. 

"Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?" 

"A little too self evident." 

"Ha! ha! ha! — ha! ha! ha! — ho! ho! ho!"— roared our 
visiter, profoundly amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death 
of me yet!" 

"And what, after all, is the matter on hand?" I asked. 

"Why, I will tell you," repHed the Prefect, as he gave a long, 
steady, and cojitemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. 
"I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me 
caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, 
and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold, 
were it known that I confided it to any one." 

"Proceed," said I. 

"Or not," said Dupin. 

"Well, then; I have received personal information, from a 



172 poe's tales 

very high quarter, that a certain document of the last impor- 
tance has been purloined from the royal apartments. The 
individual who purloined it is known; this beyond a doubt; he 
was seen to take it. It is known, also, that it still remains in 
his possession." 

"How is this known?" asked Dupin-. 

"It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect, "from the nature 
of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results 
which would at once arise from its passing out of the robber's 
possession; — that is to say, from his employing it as he must 
design in the end to employ it." 

"Be a Httle more explicit," I said. 

"Well, I may venture so- far as to say that the paper gives its 
holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is 
immensely valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of 
diplomacy. 

" Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin. 

"No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a third 
person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the 
honor of a personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives 
the holder of the document an ascendency over the illustrious 
personage whose honor and peace are so jeopardized." 

"But this ascendency," I interposed, "would depend upon 
the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. 
Who would dare — " 

"The thief," said G , "is the Minister D , who dares 

all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. 
The method of the theft was not less ingenious th9,n bold. The 
document in question — a letter, to be frank — had been 
received by the personage robbed while alone in the royal 
boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by 
the entrance of the other exalted personage, from whom 
especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and 
vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place 
it, open as it was, upon a table. The address, however, was 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 73 

uppermost, and, the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped 

notice. At this juncture enters the Minister D . His lynx 

eye immediately perceives the paper, recognizes the hand- 
writing of the address, observes the confusion of the personage 
addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business trans- 
actions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a 
letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it, pretends 
to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the other. 
Again he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon the pubHc 
affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table 
the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, 
but, of course, dared not call attention to the act, in the presence 
of the third personage who stood at her elbow. The Minister 
decamped; leaving his own letter — one of no importance — 
upon the table." 

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what 
you demand to make the ascendency complete — the robber's 
knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber." 

"Yes," repHed the Prefect; "and the power thus attained 
has, for some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, 
to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more 
thoroughly convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming 
her letter. But this, of course, cannot be done openly. In 
fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to me." 

"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of 
smoke, "no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, 
or even imagined." 

"You flatter me," replied the Prefect; "but it is possible 
that some such opinion may have been entertained." 

"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still 
in possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and not 
any employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With 
the employment the power departs." 

"True," said G ; "and upon this conviction I proceeded. 

My first care was to make thorough search of the minister's 



174 POE'S TALES 

hotel; and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of 
searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have 
been warned of the danger which would result from giving him 
reason to suspect our design." 

"But," said I, "you are quite au fait in these investigations. 
The Parisian police have done this thing often before." 

"Oh, yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits 
of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is fre- 
quently absent from home all night. His servants are by no 
means numerous. They sleep at a distance from their master's 
apartment, and, being chiefly Neapohtans, are readily made 
drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any 
chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not 
passed, during the greater part of which I have not been en- 
gaged, personally, in ransacking the D Hotel. My honor 

is interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is 
enormous. So I did not abandon the search until I had become 
fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself. 
I fancy that I have investigated every nook and corner of the 
premises in which it is possible that the paper can be con- 
cealed." 

"But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter 
may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he 
may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises? " 

' ' This is barely possible, ' ' said Dupin. "The present peculiar 
condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in 

which D is known to be involved, would render the instant 

availabihty of the document — its susceptibihty of being pro- 
duced at a moment's notice — a point of nearly equal impor- 
tance with its possession." 

"Its susceptibihty of being produced?" said I. 

"That is to say, of being destroyed,^' said Dupin. 

"True," I observed; "the paper is clearly then upon the 
premises. As for its being upon the person of the minister, we 
may consider that as out of the question." 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 75 

"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, 
as if by footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my 
own inspection." 

"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. 

"D , I presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must 

have anticipated these waylayings, as a matter of course." 

"Not altogether a fool," said G , "but then he's a poet, 

which I take to be only one remove from a fool." 

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from 
his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain dog- 
gerel myself." 

"Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your 
search." 

"Why, the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every 
where. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the 
entire building, room by room; devoting the nights of a whole 
week to each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apart- 
ment. We opened every possible drawer;* and I presume you 
know that, to a properly trained poUce agent, such a thing as a 
secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a 
'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The 
thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk — of 
space — to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have 
accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a Hne could not escape us. 
After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed 
with the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the 
tables we removed the tops." 

"Why so?" 

"Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged 
piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal 
an article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within 
the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of 
bed-posts are employed in the same way." 

"But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I 
asked. 



176 poe's tales 

"By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient 
wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we 
were obliged to proceed without noise." 

"But you could not have removed — you could not have 
taken to pieces all articles of furniture in which it would have 
been possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. 
A letter may be compressed in a thin spiral roll, not differing 
much in shape or bulk from a large knitting-needle, and in this 
form it might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. 
You did not take to pieces all the chairs?" 

"Certainly not; but we did better — we examined the rungs 
of every chair in the hotel, and indeed, the jointings of every 
description of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful micro- 
scope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance we 
should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of 
gimlet-dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an 
apple. Any disorder in the gluing — any unusual gaping in 
the joints — "would have sufficed to insure detection." 

"I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards 
and the plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as 
well as the curtains and carpets?" 

"That of course; and when we had absolutely completed 
every particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined 
the house itself. We divided its entire surface into compart- 
ments, which we numbered, so that none might be missed; then 
we scrutinized each individual square inch throughout the 
premises, including the two houses immediately adjoining, with 
the microscope, as before." 

"The two houses adjoining!" I exclaimed; "you must have 
had a great deal of trouble." 

"We had; but the reward offered is prodigious." 

"You include the grounds about the houses?" 

"All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us com- 
paratively little trouble. We examined the moss between the 
bricks, and found it undisturbed." 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 77 

"You looked among D 's papers, of course, and into the 

books of the library?" 

"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not 
only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each 
volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according 
to the fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured 
the thickness of every hook-cover, with the most accurate ad- 
measurement, and appHed to each the most jealous scrutiny of 
the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently med- 
dled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact 
should have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, 
just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longi- 
tudinally, v/ith the needles." 

"You explored the floors beneath the carpets?" 
"Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined 
the boards with the microscope." 
"And the paper on the walls?" 
"Yes." 

"You looked into the cellars?" 
"We did." 

"Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and 
the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose." 

"I fear you are right there," said the Prefect. "And now, 
Dupin, what would you advise me to do?" 

"To make a thorough re-search of the premises." 

" That is absolutely needless," replied G . " I am not more 

sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel." 
"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You 
have, of course, an accurate description of the letter? " 

" Oh yes ! ' ' And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum- 
book, proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, 
and especially of the external, appearance of the missing docu- 
ment. Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he 
took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had 
ever known the good gentleman before. 



178 poe's tales 

In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and 
found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and 
a chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length 
I said, — 

"Well, but G , what of the purloined letter? I presume 

you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing 
as overreaching the Minister?" 

"Confound him, say I — yes; I made the re-examination, 
however, as Dupin suggested — but it was all labor lost, as I 
knew it would be." 

"How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked 
Dupin. 

"Why, a very great deal — a very liberal reward — I don't 
like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I 
wouldn't mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand 
francs to any one who could obtain me that letter. The fact 
is, it is becoming of more and more importance every day; and 
the reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, how- 
ever, I could do no more than I have done." 

"Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of 

his meerschaum, "I really — think, G , you have not 

exerted yourself — to the utmost in this matter. You might — 
do a little more, I think, eh?" 

"How? — in what way?" 

"Why — puff, puff, you might — puff, puff — employ 
counsel in the matter, eh? — puff, puff, puff. Do you remem- 
ber the story they tell of Abernethy?" 

"No; hang Abernethy!" 

"To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a 
time, a certain rich miser conceived the design of sponging upon 
this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this 
purpose, an ordinary conversation in a private company, he 
insinuated his case to the physician, as that of an imaginary 
individual. 

" *We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 79 

such and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him 
to take? ' 

" 'Take!' said Abernethy, 'why, take advice, to be sure.'" 

"But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "I am perfectly 
willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give 
fifty thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the 
matter." 

"In that case," rephed Dupin, opening a drawer, and pro- 
ducing a check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for 
the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand 
you the letter," 

I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder- 
stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and 
motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, 
and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then, ap- 
parently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen, 
and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and 
signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across 
the table to Dupin, The latter examined it carefully and 
deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire, 
took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This function- 
ary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a 
trembHng hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, 
scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length 
unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without 
having uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to 
fill up the check. 

When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations. 

"The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their 
way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thor- 
oughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly 

to demand. Thus, when G detailed to us his mode of 

searching the premises at the Hotel D , I felt entire con- 
fidence in his having made a satisfactory investigation — so 
far as his labors extended." 



i8o poe's tales 

"So far as his labors extended?" said I. 

"Yes," said Dupin. "The measures adopted were not only 
the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. 
Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, 
these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it." 

I merely laughed — but he seemed quite serious in all that 
he said. 

"The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their 
kind, and well executed; their defect lay in their being inappli- 
cable to the case, and to the man. A certain set of highly 
ingenious resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean 
bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetu- 
ally errs by being too deep or too shallow, for the matter in 
hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I 
knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in 
the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. 
This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player 
holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of 
another whether that nimiber is even or odd. If the guess is 
right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to 
whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he 
had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation 
and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For 
example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up 
his closed hand, asks, ' Are they even or odd? ' Our schoolboy 
repHes, ' Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for 
he then says to himself, ' The simpleton had them even upon the 
first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make 
him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess 
odd;' — he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a 
degree above the first he would have reasoned thus: 'This 
fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the 
second, he will propose to himself upon the first impulse, a simple 
variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then 
a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation. 



THE PURLOINED LETTER l8l 

and finally he will decide upon putting it, even as before. I will 
therefore guess even;' — he guesses even, and wins. Now this 
mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed 
'lucky' — what, in its last analysis, is it?" 

"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's 
intellect with that of his opponent." 

"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon inquiring of the boy by 
what means he effected the thorough identification in which 
his success consisted, I received answer as follows: 'When I 
wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or 
how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the mo- 
ment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as 
possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then 
wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or 
heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' This 
response of the schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious 
profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucauld, to 
La Bruyere, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella." 

"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intel- 
lect with that of his opponents, depends, if I understand you 
aright, upon the accuracy with which the opponent's intellect 
is admeasured." 

"For its practical value it depends upon this," repHed 
Dupin; "and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, 
first, by default of this identification, and, secondly, by ill- 
admeasurement, or rather through non-admeasurement, of 
the intellect with which they are engaged. They consider only 
their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything 
hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have 
hidden it. They are right in this much — that their own in- 
genuity is a faithful representative of that of the mass; but 
when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in char- 
acter from their own, the felon foils them, of course. This 
always happens when it is above their own, and very usually 
when it is below. They have no variation of principle in 



l82 

their investigations; at best, when urged by some unusual 
emergency — by some extraordinary reward — they extend 
or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching 

their principles. What, for example, in this case of D , 

has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all 
this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing 
with the microscope, and dividing the surface of the build- 
ing into registered square inches — what is it all but an 
exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set of 
principles of search, which are based upon the one set of ■! 
notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in 
the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you 
not see he has taken it for granted that all men proceed to 
conceal a letter, — not exactly in a gimlet-hole bored in a 
chair-leg — but, at least, in some out-of-the-way hole or cor- 
ner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge a 
man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? 
And do you not see, also, that such recherches nooks for con- 
cealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would 
be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of con- 
cealment, a disposal of the article concealed — a disposal of it 
in this recherche manner, — is, in the very first instance, pre- 
sumable and presum.ed; and thus its discovery depends, not 
at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, 
patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case 
is of importance — or, what amounts to the same thing in 
the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude, — the 
qualities in question have never been known to fail. You 
will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had 
the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits 
of the Prefect's examination — in other words, had the prin- 
ciple of its concealment been comprehended within the prin- 
ciples of the Prefect — its discovery would have been a 
matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, how- 
ever, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote source 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 83 

of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is 
a fool because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools 
are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a 
non distrihutio medli in thence inferring that all poets are fools." 

"But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two 
brothers, I know; and both have attained reputation in let- 
ters. The Minister I believe has written learnedly on the 
Differential Calculus. He is a mathematician and no poet." 

"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet 
and mathematician he would reason well; as mere mathema- 
tician he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have 
been at the mercy of the Prefect." 

"You surprise me," I said, "by these opinions, which have 
been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not 
mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. 
The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason 
par excellence y 

"'II y a a parier,''^^ replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, 
"'que toute idee publique, toute convention recue, est une sottise, 
car elle a convenu au plus grand nombre.' The mathematicians, 
I grant you, have done their best to promulgate the popular 
error to which you allude, and which is none the less an error 
for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better 
cause, for example, they have insinuated the term 'analysis' 
into application to algebra. The French are the originators 
of this particular deception; but if a term is of any impor- 
tance — if words derive any value from applicability — then 
'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as much as, in Latin, 
'ambitus^ implies 'ambition,' 'religio/ 'religion,' or 'homines 
honesti/ a set of honorable men." 

"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of 
the algebraists of Paris; but proceed." 

"I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that 
reason which is cultivated in any special form other than the 
abstractly logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed 



184 poe's tales 

by mathematical study. The mathematics are the science 
of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely 
logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The 
great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is 
called pure algebra are abstract or general truths. And this 
error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality 
with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are 
not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation — of 
form and quantity — is often grossly false in regard to morals, 
for example. In this latter science it is very usually untrue 
that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole. In chemis- 
try also the axiom fails. In the consideration of motive it 
fails; for two motives, each of a given value, have not, neces- 
sarily, a value when united equal to the sum of their values 
apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths 
which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the 
mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through habit, 
as if they were of an absolutely general applicability — as 
the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in his very 
learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous source of error, 
when he says that, ' although the Pagan fables are not believed, 
yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences 
from them as existing realities.' With the algebraists, how- 
ever, who are Pagans themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are 
believed, and the inferences are made, not so much through 
lapse of memory, as through an unaccountable addling of 
the brains. In short, I never yet encountered the mere math- 
ematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one 
who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that 
x^ + px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say 
to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you 
please, that you believe occasions may occur where x- -}- px is 
not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand 
what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, 
for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down. 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 85 

"I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed 
at his last observations, "that if the Minister had been no more 
than a mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no 
necessity of giving me this check. I knew him, however, as 
both mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted 
to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which 
he was surrounded. I knew him as courtier, too, and as a 
bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be 
aware of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not 
have failed to anticipate — and events have proved that he 
did not fail to anticipate — the waylayings to which he was 
subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret in- 
vestigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home 
at night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to 
his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for 
thorough search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress 

them with the conviction to which G , in fact, did finally 

arrive — the conviction that the letter was not upon the 
premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which I 
was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning 
the invariable principle of policial action in searches for arti- 
cles concealed — I felt that this whole train of thought would 
necessarily pass through the mind of the Minister. It would 
imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of 
concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to 
see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel 
would be as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to 
the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the 
Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a 
matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to 
it as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, 
how desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, 
upon our first interview, that it was just possible this mys- 
tery troubled him so much on account of its being so very 
self-evident." 



1 86 poe's tales 

"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really 
thought he would have fallen into conv.ulsions." 

"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with 
very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color 
of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, 
or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well 
as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertice, 
for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. 
It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with 
more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its 
subsequent momentrmi is commensurate with this difficulty, 
than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, 
while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in 
their movements than those of the inferior grade, are yet the 
less readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesita- 
tion in the first few steps of their progress. Again: have 
you ever noticed which of the street signs over the shop doors 
are the most attractive of attention?" 

" I have never* given the matter a thought," I said. 

"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played 
upon a map. One party playing requires another to find a 
given word — the name of town, river, state or empire — any 
word, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of the 
chart. A novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass 
his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered 
names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large 
characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, 
like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the streets, 
escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and 
here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the 
moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass 
unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively 
and too palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, 
somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the Prefect. 
He never once thought it probable, or possible, that the 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 87 

Minister had deposited the letter immediately beneath the 
nose of the whole world by way of best preventing any portion 
of that world from perceiving it. 

"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and 

discriminating ingenuity of D ; upon the fact that the 

document must always have been at hand, if he intended to 
use it to good purpose; and upon the decisive evidence, 
obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden within the 
limits of that dignitary's ordinary search — the more satisfied 
I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had resorted 
to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempt- 
ing to conceal it at all. 

"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green 
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, 

at the Ministerial hotel. I found D at home, yawning, 

lounging, and dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in 
the last extremity of ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really 
energetic human being now alive — but that is only when 
nobody sees him. 

" To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and 
lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which 
I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the apartment, while 
seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host. 

"I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near 
which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscel- 
laneous* letters and other papers, with one or two musical 
instruments and a few books. Here, however, after a long 
and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite particular 
suspicion. 

"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell 
upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of paste-board, that hung 
dangling, by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just 
beneath the middle of the mantle-piece. In this rack, which 
had three or four compartments, were five or six visiting 
cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and 



i88 poe's tales 

crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle — as 
if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worth- 
less had been altered, or stayed, in a second. It had a large 

black seal, bearing the D cipher very conspicuously, 

and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D , 

the Minister, himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, 
as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the upper divisions 
of the rack. 

"No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded 
it to be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, 
to all appearance, radically different from the one of which 
the Prefect had read us so minute a description. Here the 

seal was large and black, with the D cipher; there it 

was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S family. 

Here, the address, to the Minister, was diminutive and femi- 
nine; there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, 
was markedly bold and decided; the size alone formed a 
point of correspondence. But, then, the radicalness of these 
differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and 
torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true 

methodical habits of D , and so suggestive of a design 

to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of 
the document; these things, together with the hyperobtrusive 
situation of this document, full in the view of every visiter, 
and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which 
I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly 
corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the in- 
tention to suspect. 

"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I 
maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister, 
upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and 
excite him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. 
In this examination, I committed to memory its external 
appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at 
length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial 



THE PURLOINED LETTER 1 89 

doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges 
of the paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed 
necessary. They presented the broken appearance which is 
manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and 
pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in 
the same creases or edges which had formed the original fold. 
This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the 
letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and 
re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and took my 
departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table. 

"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we 
resumed, quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding 
day. ' While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a 
pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the 
hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, and 

the shoutings of a mob. D rushed to a casement, threw 

it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the 
card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced 
it by a facsimile (so far as regards externals) which I had 

carefully prepared at my lodgings; imitating the D cipher, 

very readily, by means of a seal formed of bread. 

"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by 
the frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired 
it among a crowd of women and children. It proved, how- 
ever, to have been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to 
go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, 

D came from the window, whither I had followed him 

immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon after- 
wards I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a 
man in my own pay." 

"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the 
letter by a facsimile? Would it not have been better, at 
the first visit, to have seized it openly, and departed?" 

"D ," repHed Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man 

of nerve. His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted 



I go POES TALES 

to his interest. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, 
I might never have left the Ministerial presence alive. The 
good people of Paris might have heard of me no more. But 
I had an object apart from these considerations. You know 
my poHtical prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a par- 
tisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Min- 
ister has had her in his power. She now has him in hers; 
since, being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, 
he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will 
he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political de- 
struction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate 
than awkward. It is very well to talk about the facilis 
descensus Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalan! 
said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come 
down. In the present instance I have no sympathy — at 
least no pity — for him who descends. He is that monstrum 
horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, how- 
ever, that I should like very well to know the precise char- 
acter of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the 
Prefect terms 'a certain personage,' he is reduced to open- 
ing the letter which I left for him in the card-rack." 
"How? Did you put anything particular in it?" 
"Why — it did not seem altogether right to leave the 

interior blank — that would have been insulting. D , 

at Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite 
good-humoredly, that I should remember. So, as I knew 
he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the 
person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to 
give him a clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and 
I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words — 

• — — Un dessein si funeste, 
S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste. 

They are to be found in Crebillon's * Atree.' " 



THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO 

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best 
could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. 
You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, 
however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would 
be avenged; this was a point definitely settled — but the very 
definiteness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of 
risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A 
wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. 
It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make him- 
self felt as such to him who has done the wrong. 

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I 
given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as 
was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that 
my smile now was at the thought of his immolation. 

He had a weak point — this Fortunato — although in other 
regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He 
prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians 
have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthu- 
siasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practise 
imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In 
painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a 
quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this 
respect I did not differ from him materially; — I was skilful in 
the Itahan vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I 
could. 

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness 
of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He ac- 
costed me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking 
much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti- 
striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap 

191 



192 

and bells, I y^as so pleased to see him that I thought I should 
never have done wringing his hand. 

I said to him — "My dear Fortunate, you are luckily met. 
How remarkably well you are looking to-day. But I have re- 
ceived a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my 
doubts." 

"How?" said he. "Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! 
And in the middle of the carnival!" 

"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to 
pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the 
matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing 
a bargain." 

"Amontillado!" 

"I have my doubts." 

"Amontillado!" 

"And I must satisfy them." 

"Amontillado!" 

"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any 
one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me " 

"Luchresi cannot tell Ajnontillado from Sherry." 

"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for 
your own." 

" Come, let us go." 

"Whither?" 

"To your vaults." 

"My friend, no; I will not impose upon yoFur good nature. 
I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi " 

"I have no engagement; — come." 

"My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe 
cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are 
insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre." 

"Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. 
Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for 
Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado." 

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and 



THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO 1 93 

putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaure closely 
about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo. 

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to 
make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should 
not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders 
not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well 
knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as 
soon as my back was turned. 

I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to 
Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the 
archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and 
winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. 
We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together 
upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors. 

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his 
cap jingled as he strode. 

"The pipe," he said. 

"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work 
which gleams from these cavern walls." 

He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two 
filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication. 

"Nitre?" he asked, at length. 

"Nitre," I repHed. "How long have you had that cough?" 

"Ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! 
ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh!" 

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many 
minutes. 

"It is nothing," he said, at last. 

"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health 
is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are 
happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me 
it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot 
be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi " 

"Enough," he said, "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not 
kiU me. I shall not die of a cough." 



194 POE S TALES 

"True — true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention 
of alarming you unnecessarily — but you should use all proper 
caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the 
damps." 

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a 
long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould. 

"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine. 

He raised it to his hps with a leer. He paused and nodded to 
me famiharly, while his bells jingled. 

"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us." 

"And I to your long life." 

He again took my arm, and we proceeded. 

"These vaults," he said, "are extensive." 

"The Montresors," I repHed, "were a great and numerous 
family." 

"I forget your arms." 

"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a 
serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel." 

"And the motto?" 

"Nemo me impune lacessit." 

"Good!" he said. 

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own 
fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long 
walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons interming- 
Hng, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, 
and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above 
the elbow. 

"The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs Hke moss 
upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops 
of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back 
ere it is too late. Your cough " 

"It is nothing," he said; " let us go on. But first, another 
draught of the Medoc." 

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied 
it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed 



THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO 1 95 

and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not 
understand. 

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement — 
a grotesque one. 

"You do not comprehend?" he said. 

"Not I," I repHed. 

"Then you are not of the brotherhood." 

"How?" 

"You are not of the masons." 

"Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes." 

' ' You ? Impossible ! A mason? ' ' 

"A mason," I replied. 

"A sign," he said, "a sign." 

"It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of 
my roquelaure a trowel. 

"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us 
proceed to the Amontillado." 

"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and 
again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We 
continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed 
through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and de- 
scending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness 
of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame. 

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another 
less spacious. Its walls had been Hned with human remains, 
piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great cata- 
combs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still 
ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones 
had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, 
forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall 
thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still 
interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, 
in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for 
no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval be- 
tween two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, 



*ig6 poe's tales 

and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid 
granite. 

It was in vain that Fortunate, upHfting his dull torch, en- 
deavored to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination 
the feeble light did not enable us to see. 

"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for 
Luchresi " 

"He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped 
unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. 
In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and 
finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly be- 
wildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the 
granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each 
other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these de- 
pended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the 
links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to 
secure it. He was too much astonished to resist. With- 
drawing the key I stepped back from the recess. 

"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help 
feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me 
implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. 
But I must first render you all the httle attentions in my power." 

"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered 
from his astonishment. 

"True," I replied; "the Amontillado." 

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones 
of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon 
uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these 
materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to 
wall up the entrance of the niche. 

I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I dis- 
covered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great 
measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a 
low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the 
cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate 



THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO 1 97 

silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; 
and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise 
lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken 
to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down 
upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I re- 
sumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, 
the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon 
a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flam- 
beaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the 
figure within. 

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly 
from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me vio- 
lently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Un- 
sheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; 
but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand 
upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I 
re-approached the wall; I replied to the yells of him who 
clamored. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them' in volume 
and in strength. I did this, and the clamorer grew still. 

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I 
had completed the eighth, the ninth and the tenth tier. I had 
finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained 
but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled 
with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. 
But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected 
the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, 
which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble For- 
tunato. The voice said — 

"Ha! ha! ha! — he! he! he! — a very good joke, indeed — an 
excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the 
palazzo — he! he! he! — over our wine — he! he! he!" 

"The Amontillado!" I said. 

"He! he! he! — he! he! he! — yes, the Amontillado, But is 
it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, 
the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone." 



198 poe's tales 

"Yes," I said, "let us be gone." 

"For the love of God, Montresor!" 

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!" 

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew 
impatient. I called aloud — 

"Fortunato!" 

No answer. I called again — 

"Fortunato!" 

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining 
aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return 
only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the 
dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to 
make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its posi- 
tion; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected 
the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal 
has disturbed them. In pace requiescat! 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS 

Sonnet — To Science 

Summarize in a sentence the central thought of this sonnet. Which 
sonnet form has Poe here followed, Shakespeare's or Milton's? Notice 
carefully the adjectives here used. Are any of them especially well chosen? 

Romance 

Poe first published this poem in the 1829 volume of his verse and greatly 
enlarged it two years' later. Afterward he restored it to nearly its original 
form. The first stanza offers an interesting picture of Poe's life of dreams, 
while the second early emphasizes his statement that with him poetry was 
a passion. 

To Helen 

f 

Poe is said to have written this exquisite little poem when he was four- ~> / • 
teen, in honor of Mrs. Jane Stjindish, the friend of his imhappy youth; -^T^-^^ 
but both of these statements may be seriously questioned. We are, perhaps, 
safer in believing that "Helen" is his ideal woman, whose beauty is here ex- • 
pressed in terms of art. The spirit of the ancient world is finely suggested 
in the last two lines of the second stanza and is emphasized by such epithets 
as "Nicean, " which, though it has never been satisfactorily defined, brings 
to mind classic lands and times. There is a similar suggestion in "hya- 
cinthine," which is explained by the following in Poe's tale, Ligeia: "the 
raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant, the naturally curling tresses, setting 
forth the full force of the Homeric epithet ' hyacinthine.'" Like most of 
his better work this poem was subjected to careful revisions. Thus, lines 
four and five of Stanza II first read, 

" To the beauty of fair Greece 
And the grandeur of old Rome"; 

and in the last stanza "The agate lamp" replaced "The folded scroll." 
Was the poem strengthened by these changes? Why is the movement of 
the last two Unes especially beautiful? • 

ISRAPEL 

Israfel is another of Poe's youthful poems which was carefully revised 
and polished before assuming its present form. Poe inserted the phrase 
"whose heart-strings are a lute" into the motto of the poem, which comes 
from Sale's Preliminary Discourse to the Koran, through Moore's Lalla 
Rookh. In the verse-form, the phrasing, the lyric rapture, the yearning 
for supernal beauty, and the closing personal note, Israfel shows clearly the 

199 



200 POE S POEMS AND TALES 

influence of Shelley. Compare the last stanza of this poem with that of 
Shelley's Skylark. Does the obscurity of certain stanzas add to or detract 
from the beauty of the poem? Select the most musical stanza. 

The City in the Sea 

Two titles of earher versions of this poem, "The Doomed City" and 
"The City of Sin," cast a Uttle Hght upon its meaning. We may be satis- 
fied, however, to read and re-read the poem for its music and for such fine 
phrases as "The viol, the violet, and the vine." In an earher form of the 
poem appeared these closing lines: 

"And Death to some more happy clime 
Shall give his undivided time." 

Was the poem improved by their omission? 

Lenore 

The popularity of The Raven probably induced Poe to recast into the 
stanza form here used the version of 1831, which had been arranged thus: 

"Ah, broken is the golden bowl! 
The spirit flown forever! 
Let the bell toll! — A saintly soul 
Glides down the Stygian rivei! 
And let the burial rite be read — • 

The funeral song be sung — 
A dirge for the most lovely dead 
That ever died so young! 
And Guy De Vere, 
Hast thou no tear? 

Weep now or nevermore! 
See on yon drear 
And rigid bier, 

Lies low thy love, Lenore!" 

Which stanza form do you prefer? By whom are the first and third 
stanzas supposedly spoken? By whom the second and fourth? 

Study carefully Poe's choice of names for his heroines. Do they contain 
many vowel sounds? What class of consonants does he use most often? 

Hymn 

Poe's tale Morella, in which this Hymn first appeared, was published in 
The Southern Literary Messenger for April, 1835. Is the poem well named? 
Why are the first four lines especially musical? 

To One in Paradise 

This poem was first incorporated in Poe's tale The Visionary, later called 
The Assignation. Some of the variations in its numerous republications 
are interesting: for example, the version in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS 20I 

is entitled To lanthe in Heaven; and in another version appears the follow- 
ing closing stanza: 

"Alas! for that accursed time 

They bore thee o'er the billow, 
From Love to titled age and crime, 

And an unholy pillow: 
From me and from our misty clime 
Where weeps the silver willow." 

Why did Poe finally omit this stanza? Which do you consider the most 
musical stanza of the poem? Do you here discover any of Poe's favorite 
phrases? 

D ream-Land 

How do the vagueness and fantasy of these verses affect their charm and 
value? What different poetic devices are here employed? If we did not 
know the author, what evidence in the poem would induce us to attribute 
it to Poe? 

EuLALiE — A Song 

If you did not know who wrote this poem, what internal evidence would 
lead you to assign it to Poe? In what respects does it differ from most of 
his other verse? 

The Raven 

In The Raven, which appeared in 1845, we discover the marks of Poe's 
later poetical style. According to his own account of the origin of these 
verses, as given in his Philosophy of Composition, he planned them with the 
precision of an engineer in designing a bridge. He determined the length, 
decided that the theme should combine beauty and sadness, and built his 
verse upon the refrain "Nevermore." This explanation must not, of 
course, be taken Hterally, for Poe loved to hoax his readers. Both in form 
and in phrase The Raven exhibits some interesting resemblances to Mrs. 
Browning's Lady Geraldine's Courtship, for which Poe had expressed great 
admiration in a review late in 1844. Two of the stanzas in Mrs. Browning's 
poem read as follows: 

"With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain 
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brow; 
While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise forever 
Through the open casement whitened by the moonUght's slant repose. 

"Said he — ' Vision of a lady! stand there silent, stand there steady! 
Now I see it plainly, plainly; now I cannot hope or doubt — 
There, the brows of mild repression — there, the lips of silent passion, 
Curv'd like an archer's bow to send the bitter arrows out.' " 

The Raven won immediate popularity in America and in England and has 
since been widely translated, so that to-day it shares with Gray's Elegy 
the fame of being one of the two most widely known poems in English. 
Its popularity has been due in part to its novel but easily remembered verse 
structure, its weird, dramatic power, and its steady progress to a vivid, 



202 POE'S poems and TALES 

allegorical climax. "It is not till the very last line of the very last stanza, " 
says Poe, "that the intention of making the raven emblematical of Mourn- 
ful and Never-ending Remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen," 

Poe's belief that the poet's sensitiveness to beauty brought with it a keen 
perception of deformity, led him in his later verse occasionally to use gro- 
tesque rhymes and phrases, the effect of which may be compared with that 
produced by faces of grinning imps on a stately cathedral spire. Can you 
discover any such rhymes and phrases in The Raven? A repetition with a 
slight variation is called a repetend. Point out some effective uses of this 
device. Indicate some Hnes where the sound echoes the sense. Are there 
any lines or phrases that might be used to characterize Poe and his work? 

Ulalume 

" Ulalume, " says Mr. Stedman, " seems an improvisation such as a violinist 
might play on an instrument which remained his one thing of worth after 
the death of a companion who had left him alone with his own soul. " The 
poem belongs on that borderland where poetry passes into music, and with 
its suggestion of grief, of beauty, and of supernatural powers, appeals to the 
emotions rather than to the intellect. Joined to the musical beauty, however, 
is a dim symbolism which shines out at times like the moon in a clouded sky. 
This we may interpret as we will. 

Point out some especially beautiful words and musical lines. Show how 
Ulalume exempUfies Poe's conceptions of poetry as given in the Introduc- 
tion, pages x-xii. 

To My Mother 

This poem is addressed to the woman who guarded and cared for him with 
a rare devotion — Mrs. Clem, Virginia's mother. 

This is, perhaps, the best of Poe's few sonnets. Which sonnet form is here 
employed, that of Shakespeare or that of Milton? 

tVnnabel Lee 

There has been much discussion concerning the identity of "Annabel 
Lee." The public, however, has chosen to believe her Poe's child wife, 
Virginia. This poem, the most human of all our author's verse, has much 
of the simple, naive beauty of the old ballads. 

Note carefully the skillful use of simple, recurring rhymes. Where 
does a slight change in the rhythmical movement add beauty to the poem? 

The Bells 

Before this poem appeared in its present form in Sartain's Union Maga- 
zine, it was twice revised and enlarged. The earliest version reads thus: 
"The bells! — hear the bells! 
The merry wedding bells! 
The little silver bells! 
How fairy-like a melody there swells 
From the silver tinkling cells 
Of the bells, bells, bells! 
Of the bells! 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS 203 



"The bells — ah, the bells! 
The heavy iron bells! 
Hear the tolling of the bells! 
Hear the knells! 
How horrible a monody there floats 
From their throats — 
From their deep-toned throats! 
Of the bells, bells, bells! 
Of the bells ! " 

The Bells is perhaps the most perfect example in EngHsh of onomato- 
poetic verse, i.e., a poem in which the sound echoes the sense. 

Pomt out the similarities in the beginning and the ending of the four 
stanzas. Do any Hnes serve as a refrain? Show how the diction, the use of 
rhymes, and the varying length of line add to the melody of the poem and 
the onomatopoetic effect. Point out passages which take their tone from 
the repetition of a single vowel sound. 

Eldorado 

Both the theme — the search for Eldorado, "The Golden Land," — and 
the unique stanzaic form help confirm Poe's authorship of these verses 
published after his death. 

How does this poem suggest Poe's own life experience? With these verses 
compare Longfellow's treatment of a similar theme in Excelsior. 

Shadow 

Shadow is one of Poe's early prose-poems; it owes something in form and 
styleto Bulwer and more to Coleridge and Byron. Every detail has been 
cunningly chosen and fitted into place: the dark chamber in the dim eastern 
city, the hysterical terror of the revellers, the faint shadow, and the thriUing 
chmax in the tones of the "thousand departed friends" — all contribute 
to Poe's predetermined effect. 

Note_ carefully the rhythmical phrasing, the Bibhcal simpHcity and 
suggestiveness of diction, the word-order and use of connectives. Why is 
the last sentence especially suggestive? 

The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion 

Byron's Darkness popularized with writers and painters this theme of 
the destruction of the world. Poe's treatment of it illustrates well both his 
love of_ speculating upon the unknown if not the unknowable and his power 
of casting into semi-poetic form his pseudo-scientific conceptions. 
^ Which of the characteristics of style marking his poetry may be traced 
in this tale? What different purposes are served by the opening dia- 
logue? Give three reasons to account for the effectiveness of the 
ending. 



204 

Eleonora 

This is perhaps the brightest and most attractive of all Poe's tales. It 
exemplifies well his power of creating novel forms of beauty and of weaving 
into his prose-poems strands from his own life. He himself is the dreamer, 
the man of moods, wedded to his child cousin. 

What are the chief resemblances between the style of Shadow and that of 
Eleonora? Are any phrases here used as a refrain? Point out some sen- 
tences marked by especially beautiful cadence. What purpose is served 
by the first two paragraphs? Would the tale gain or lose by their omission? 

LiGEIA 

Poe chose the name Ligeia, which is from the Greek and means "clear- 
voiced," because of its musical beauty. In Ms earlier poem Al Aaraaj 
he thus addresses Ligeia as the spirit of music in nature: 

"Ligeia! Ligeia! 

My beautiful one! 
Whose harshest idea 
Will to melody run. 

"'Ligeia! wherever 
Thy image may be, 
No magic shall sever 
Thy music from thee. " 

Ligeia, which Poe once declared his best story, belongs among his narratives 
of mystery and terror and is filled with a fantasy which justified him in 
including it among his Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. The marked 
use of alliteration, quaint comparisons, poetic phrases, and word-order 
relate it to Shadow and Eleonora. The motto, which is here used as a re- 
frain, has not been traced in Glanvill's writings, and is possibly of Poe's 
own creation. The poem woven into this later form of the story appeared 
separately in 1843 as The Conqueror Worm. An earlier and less perfect 
development of the theme of tliis story may be found in Poe's tale Morella. 

P. 44, 1. 3. "the misty winged Astopet." This allusion, and that later 
to "the valley of Nourjahad, " are probably of Poe's own invention. They 
are good examples of his delight in references to an Orient which he knew 
largely through the pages of Byron and Thomas Moore. 

P. 45, 1. 26. "let me repeat." Poe frequently secures atmosphere or tone 
by dwelling upon an idea and presenting it in new forms in sentences in- 
troduced by "Let me repeat," "I have said," etc. 

P. 50, I. 31. "a child-like perversity." Poe recognized this as a marked 
element of his own character. See his story The Imp of the Perverse. 

Why has Poe made the setting of the tale so indefinite? Express in a 
sentence the basic idea of the story. Note such phrases as "the thrilling 
and enthralling eloquence of her low, musical language"; and point out 
other alliterative passages. What is Poe attempting to symboKze in the 
poem? Which is the most musical stanza? Compare its treatment of the 
theme of death with that in The Raven. 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS 205 

The Fall of the House of Usher 

This story is usually regarded as the best of Poe's tales of fantastic terror 
and as his most perfect effort in combining atmosphere and plot. Every 
phrase in the opening sentence adds to the dreariness and desolation; the 
effect is heightened by each detail in the picture of the house and its people, 
upon which he skillfully dwells till the reader breathes the atmosphere of 
decay and death. Gradually the threads of the story tighten, and cHmax 
follows climax to the thrilling, vibrant close. 

P. 60, I. II. A good illustration of Poe's use of repetition in his sentence 
structure for the sake of emphasis. 

P. 64, 1. 32. Poe has here drawn in careful detail his own likeness. Com- 
pare this description with his portrait and with his delineation of Lady 
Ligeia, pages 43-44- 

P. 69, 1. 27. The Haunted Palace, which first appeared separately in The 
Baltimore Museum for April, 1843, symbolizesj^the overthrow of a briUiant 
human mind. The fine management of its slightly irregular metrical form, 
its beauty of vowel and consonant combinations, and the "mystic current 
of its meaning," entitle it to a place among Poe's best verses. 

P. 71, 1. 30. One or two of these "quaint and curious volumes" Poe may 
have read; most of them he knew only by name; the last title is probably 
of his own invention. 

P. 79, 1. I. Poe was fascinated by the horror of premature burial; he 
retvu-ns to the theme in many of his stories. 

What poetic elements mark the diction, word-order, and sentence struc- 
ture in various parts of the story? Select some well-constructed and beauti- 
fully cadenced sentences and indicate the source of their power. Note 
carefully how details introduced early in the story are employed later. 
Why does Poe here make such sUght use of conversation? Give four reasons 
why this should be considered one of the world's greatest short stories. 

The Tell-Tale Heart 

The Tell-Tale Heart might be classed with William Wilson and The Black 
Cat as stories of conscience. The victims are all men of acute senses, mad- 
dened by torturing memories and teased by the Imp of the Perverse. In 
this story an original if rather slight plot hastens to a tense climax; while 
the short, crisp sentences, the simple diction, the well-chosen comparisons, 
and the direct appeal to the reader heighten the vividness and the reaUty 
of the scene. 

Why is the first paragraph an especially effective beginning? Notice 
carefully the use here made of laughter. What different devices does Poe 
employ to strengthen the effect of his climax? 

The Masque of the Red Death 

In a sub-title Poe once called this tale "A Fantasy"; he is here more 
interested in the setting, tone, and atmosphere than in the plot, and seeks 
rather to create a mood than to tell a story. Here, as in the majority of his 



2o6 poe's poems and tales 

tales of mystery and horror, the scene is laid in a far-distant castle of Foe's 
dreamland of magnificence and terror and is utterly lacking in the realism 
which marks such an account of a plague as Defoe's Journal. For atmos- 
phere and tone Poe again resorts to his poetic-prose style, especially in his 
introduction of obsolescent words, in the free use of conjunctions, and in 
the phrasing and sentence structure of such passages as his opening and 
closing paragraphs. To this theme of the " Conqueror Worm" Poe returned 
in the poem later inserted in Ligeia, the fourth stanza of which might serve 
as a summary of this story. 

How does the fear here portrayed differ from that in The Fall of the House 
of Usher? Compare the use of color and light with that in Ligeia. Point 
out some phrases that help characterize Poe himself. 

The Pit and the Pendulum 

The Inquisition, or Holy OflSce, was a papal court for the discovery, 
examination, and punishment of heretics, developed by the Church in the 
thirteenth century. The Spanish Inquisition, which was placed under 
state control in the fifteenth century, acted with a notorious cruelty which 
even the Church could not curb. Though its worst abuses gradually ceased 
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it continued, largely as a poUti- 
cal weapon, till the invasion of Napoleon in 1808, and was not formally 
abolished till 1834. In this story Poe not only wrings every thrill of terror 
from his situations, but also appeals to our interest in the solution of 
some puzzling problem, an appeal which comes to play a more and more 
important part in liis tales. Here, again, he plunges at once into his story, 
gives the setting almost incidentally, and through his keen analysis of 
suffering and dim states of mind soon rouses our sympathy. He describes 
each species of horror with minute fidelity and strengthens his effects with 
every detail of style — repetition, parallel sentence structure, question and 
exclamation. He rises from climax after cUmax to a conclusion that thrills 
like the blast of many trumpets. 

Indicate the main divisions of the story and give each a name. How 
does Poe's purpose here differ from that in The Masque of the Red Death? 
State three reasons why this is one of the most effective endings ever given 
a short story. 

A Descent into the Maelstrom 

This narrative embodies many of the characteristics of each of Poe's 
chief classes of stories. At times it uses words and phrases that might 
find a place in Eleonora; it thrills us in every nerve; and the plot is solved 
through the ingenuity of the hero. Like his other pseudo-scientific stories, 
it is marked by that plausibility, that display of learning, and that appeal 
to curiosity in which he deUghted. Poe's geography is here so accurate 
that he must have written with a good map or some detailed account of the 
region fresh in mind. The student should consult the Century Atlas, where 
many of these names appear in slightly different form. There is no such 
whirlpool as that which Poe here pictures, but the swift tidal currents have 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS 207 

giveif a basis for the tradition he employs. Most of his information, in- 
cluding the title from Jonas Ramus, he derived from the third edition of 
the Encydopcedia Britamiica. In a later edition of that work Poe is cited 
as an authority on whirlpools, — a striking illustration of his power to 
create the semblance of truth. To secure our belief Poe has devised 
an admirable setting; we, too, seem to watch from the precipice the waters 
boiling and seething far beneath us, and we realize the better their power 
by the effect they produce upon the narrator even at that height. He 
also controls well the progress and interest of the story and heightens them 
with a hand as sure as an engineer's on the throttle of a locomotive. 

Indicate three devices by which Poe secures belief in his story. Select 
some vivid, well-chosen words, some striking comparisons, and some ex- 
amples of effective use of contrast. 

The Gold-Bug 

The Gold-Bug appeared in The Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, where 
it won Poe a prize of one hundred much needed dollars. Within a few 
years the story had reached a circulation of 300,000 copies. Some of the 
reasons for this popularity may be briefly summarized: (i) There is a 
fascination in the subject of buried treasure — the theme has all the lure of 
a lottery. (2) To this must be added the widespread interest in the deeds 
of that prince of pirates. Captain Kidd — his very name rouses attention. 
(3) To the spell of romance Poe has here joined the charm of the detective 
story and has turned to good Uterary account his ability to decipher secret 
writing. Thus realism and romance go hand in hand through the story. 

Poe has exercised a romancer's right in placing a chain of rough hills on 
the flat coast of Carolina and in changing the appearance of Sullivan's 
Island, which he had known during his soldier days at Fort Moultrie in 
1828. In some parts of the story, where we might expect a strict accuracy, 
such, for example, as the weight and amount of the treasure, and the measure- 
ment of distance, his details will not bear close inspection. Again, he is 
weak in his management of dialogue and utterly lacking in any command 
of dialect: Jupiter uses a dialect but little more realistic than that of Crusoe's 
man Friday. But we forget these defects when once Poe has caught us 
in the net of his plot; and while the story is in full swing, we suspend for 
the time our disbelief. The narrative grips and holds us; it makes many 
and cimning appeals; consequently, it will probably long continue to be 
our best known American short story. 

P. 131, 1. 3. Legrand is one of Poe's typical heroes: a man acquainted 
with wealth; a lover of letters and science; given to reverie; of superior, 
though somewhat unsettled, mental faculties; and fond of exercising and 
displaying their powers. 

Is the motto especially appropriate? Would it have been more appro- 
priate if they had failed to find the treasure? Why should not Legrand 
tell the tale? Indicate the large divisions of the story. Which of these 
did you find the most interesting? Which, probably, interested Poe the 
most? Why does Poe close the story by recurring to Captain Kidd? 



2o8 poe's poems and tales 



The Purloined Letter 

This is the last of Poe's series of detective stories, which also includes 
The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget. Poe's 
sharp-eyed, keen-minded M. Dupin has been the first of a large family of 
detectives, such as M. Lecoq of Gaboriau and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 
Sherlock Holmes. How closely the EngUsh detective treads in the tracks 
of Poe's hero may be seen by comparing this story with Doyle's A 
Scandal in Bohemia. Accompanying Poe's hero, and sharing his scorn of 
the stupidity of the police, is the confidant who tells the tale and opportunely 
asks those questions that rise in the minds of the readers. Poe has con- 
structed his plot in a neat, careful, plausible fashion, and offers the reader a 
pleasure somewhat akin to that of following the steps in a logical demon- 
stration. The detective tale is not, perhaps, the highest class of story; 
but The Purloined Letter is probably the best of its class. 

Name three different piurposes served by the first paragraph. Where is 
the first hint regarding the outcome of the story? Point out the resem- 
blances in structure between The Purloined Letter and The Gold-Bug. In 
which is the close the more clever and the more appropriate? 

The Cask of Amontillado 

Poe here uses his favorite conception of entombing the living as the 
basis of a study in diabolical revenge. The rapid beginning of the story, 
its brevity, the contrast between the gay dress of the reveller and the nitre- 
covered walls of his tomb, and the deUneation of fear, gradually rising 
through every degree of terror to the agonizmg death scream, all combine 
to stamp the story deep in the reader's memory. 

Where do you begin to realize Montresor's purpose? What is the effect 
of his gaiety? Trace the growth of terror in Fortunato. Might the closing 
Latin quotation be omitted without loss to the story? 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1827. Tamerlane and Other Poems, By a Bostonian, Bostoft". 

1829. Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, Baltimore (including 

Sonnet — To Science and Romance). 
1 83 1. Poems, New York (including To Helen, Israfel, The City in the Sea — 

then entitled The City of Sin, Lenore — then entitled A Pean). 
1833. MS. Found in a Bottle, "The Baltimore Visiter." 
1835. Hymn, "The Southern Literary Messenger," April. 

To One in Paradise, in his tale The Visionary, "The Southern Literary 

Messenger, " July. 
Shadow — A Parable, "Southern Literary Messenger," September. 

1837. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, New York. 

1838. Ligeia, "The American Museum," September. 

1839. The Fall of the House of Usher, "Gentleman's Magazine," Sep- 

tember. 

1840. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, Philadelphia. 

1841. A Descent into the Maelstrom, "Graham's Magazine," May. 

1842. Eleonora, "The Gift." 

The Masque of the Red Death, " Graham's Magazine," May. 

1843. The Conqueror Worm, "Graham's Magazine," January. 
The Tell-Tale Heart, "The Pioneer," January. 

The Gold-Bug, "Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper," June 21-28. 

1844. Dream-Land, "Graham's Magazine," June. 

1845. The Raven, "The Evening Mirror," January 20. 
Eulalie — A Song, "American Whig Review," July. 
The Purloined Letter, "The Gift." 

The Raven and Other Poems, New York. 

1846. The Cask of Amontillado, "Godey's Lady's Book," November. 

1847. Ulalume, "American Whig Review," December. 

1849. To My Mother, "Flag of Our Union." 

Annabel Lee, "The New York Tribune," October 9. 
The Bells, "Home Journal," April 28. 

1850. Eldorado, " The Works of the late Edgar Allan Poe, with a Memoir 

by Rufus Wihnot Griswold." 



The first careful edition of Poe's writings was that of John H. Ingram, 
four volumes, Edinburgh, 1874-75; this was followed in 1884 by Richard 
Henry Stoddard's six volume edition. In 1885 George Edward Wood- 
berry issued his Life of Poe, which in an enlarged form, 1909, is still the 

209 



2IO poe's poems and tales 

standard biography. In 1894-95, in collaboration with Edmund Clarence 
Stedman, he published a very complete edition of Poe's works, which was 
followed and supplemented in 1902 by Professor James A. Harrison's ad- 
mirable "Virginia Edition." James H. Whitty's "Complete Poems," 
191 1, has given us a few new minor poems and some new facts about Poe's 
life. Killis Campbell's The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, 1917, is the most 
scholarly edition of Poe's verse. 



GLOSSARY 

abandon (French). A free yielding to impulse. 

Abernethy, John (1764-1831). A popular but eccentric English surgeon 
and medical lecturer. 

.Egipan. The " goat-Uke " Pan, so called from the appearance of his head 
and legs. See Mela. 

.ffiolus. The Greek god of the winds; these stir the strings of the ^olian 
harp. 

agressi sunt, etc. (Latin). " They entered the sea of darkness to seek what 
might there be found." 

Aidenn (Arabic adn, thence Eden). Paradise. 

ambitus (Latin). A " going-about "; hence, an illegal ofl&ce-seeking. 

Amontillado (a mon ti yd' do). A Spanish hght colored wine, of rich flavor, 
having little sugar or sweetness. 

Anacreon (563-478 B.C.). A noted Greek lyric poet, born in Teos, whose 
chief themes were wine and love. 

aqua regia (Latin, royal water). A compound of nitric and hydrochloric 
acids, taking its name from its power to dissolve the royal metal — gold. 

Archimedes (287?-2i2 B. C). The renowned mathematician of Syracuse. 
The title here given may be freely translated, The Principles of Floating. 

Aries. The ram, or the first of the twelve signs of the Zodiac. 

Astarte. The Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Ashtoreth, worshipped by 
the Phoenicians as the moon goddess. 

au fait (French). Expert, skillful, well-instructed. 

auto-da-fe (Portuguese) . Literally, act of the faith — the execution, es- 
pecially the burning, of a heretic. 

au troisieme. The fourth floor, though hterally on the third, since the 
French begin their count above the ground floor. 

avatar. The incarnate form or manifestation of the plague. 

Aztael. The Mohammedan death angel who parts the soul from the body. 

Bacon, Francis, Baron Verulam (1561-1626). An eminent EngHsh states- 
man, philosopher and author. His actual words read, " There is no ex- 
cellent beauty," etc. 

Beranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857). A French writer of songs and lyrics, 
the champion of the common people and much loved by them. 

bridge. Guarding the entrance of the Mohammedan paradise is the bridge 
Al Sirat, " finer than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword." 

brusquerie (French). A blunt, curt manner. 

Bryant, Jacob (17 15-1804). An English antiquarian whose Mythology 
Poe knew intimately and used extensively. 

Campanella, Tommaso (1563-1639). An Italian monk who while im- 
prisoned for heresy pictured a model state in his Civitas Solis. 



212 POE S POEMS AND TALES 

Canning, Sir Launcelot. The author, the title of his book, and the ex- 
tracts given are probably of Poe's invention. 

Catalan!, Angelica (1779-1849). An ItaHan soprano celebrated for her 
high notes. 

Chamfort, Sebastian Roch Nicolas (i 741-1794). A clever French writer 
of maxims and epigrams. 

Charonean Canal. Acheron, the river of woe, over which Charon was 
believed to ferry the dead. 

Chian. From Chios, modern Scio. An island in the ^gean Sea, famous 
for its wine. 

Cleomenes. The Son of Apollodorus, and sculptor of the Venus de' Medici. 

cleverly. Here used colloquially for fairly or actually. 

counters. An obsolete and contemptuous word for coins. 

Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot de (1674-1762). A French tragic poet. 

decora (Latin, plural of decorum) . Those things fit or proper — the propri- 
eties. 

De Grave. A Bordeaux wine, red or white, full of body. 

Delos. An island in the yEgean Sea set apart for the worship of Apollo 
and Latona. 

Democritus. A Greek philosopher slightly older than Socrates. " The 
Well of Democritus " is probably the void in which he believed there 
revolved the infinite atoms of which Being is composed. 

demon. Here a " familiar or friendly or guiding spirit." 

Dian, Diana. The Roman goddess of chastity and hmiting; also the moon- 
goddess. 

empressement (French). Earnestness, heartiness, ardor. 

ennuye (French). Bored. 

Eros. The Greek god corresponding to Cupid. 

escritoire (French). Writing desk or secretary. 

Eymeric, Nicolas (1320-1399). His Directoriuyn Inquisitorum prescribed 
the methods of the Inquisition with fiendish ingenviity; first printed in 
1503. 

facilis descensus Averni (Latin). " Easy is the descent into Avernus," or 
Hell. Cf. Virgil's jEneid, vi, 126. 

Faubourg St. Germain. Formerly a fashionable part of Paris, south of 
the Seine. 

Feroe. A group of about twenty small Danish islands between the Shetland 
Islands and Iceland. 

fete (French). Festival, celebration of some day. 

Flud, Robert (1574-1637). An English mystic, who claimed power to read 
the future. 

Fuseli, John Henry (1741-1825). An eminent Swiss-English artist and 
professor of painting. 

Gilead. A district in Palestine east of the Jordan; see Jeremiah, viii, 22. 

Glanvill, Joseph (1636-1680). An English divine and author, philosopher 
and mystic. 

Golconda. A city in India, faipous for the diamonds there cut and 
polished. 



GLOSSARY 213 

Gothic. The pointed type of architecture which prevailed in Europe from 

the twelfth to the fifteenth century. 
Gresset, Jean Baptiste Louis de (1709-1777). A French poet. Vert-Veri 

relates the adventures of a profane parrot in a nunnery; Ma Chartreuse 

is a finely tempered satire on the Jesuits. 
Helusion. Properly Elusion, or Elysium. The fields where dwell the 

souls of the blessed dead. 
Hernani. Victor Hugo's famous tragedy, 1830. 
Herod. Herod was the stock ranter in the miracle plays. Hence the 

phrase means to out-do in some extreme act. 
Hesper. Hesperus, the western or evening star. 
Holberg, Ludwig von (1684-1754). A gifted, original, and learned Danish 

writer. His Nicholai Klimii iter suhterraneum, published in Latin, was 

very popular. 
homines honesti (Latin). Distinguished men. 
hotel (French). A public building or ofiicial town mansion. 
houri. Literally " gazelle-like in the eyes," — a nymph of the Moham- 
medan Paradise. 
II y a, etc. (French). " It is a safe wager that every widespread idea, every 

accepted convention is a bit of stupidity, — since it has been approved 

by the mob." 
Impia tortorum, etc. (Latin). " Here the impious, insatiate throng of tor- 
turers long nourished its madness on innocent blood. Now the native land 

is saved and happy, the pit of death has been destroyed, and where grim 

death walked, appear life and health." 
improvisatori (Italian). Those who improvised music or verse. 
Indagine, Jean d' (Joannes ab Indagine). A sixteenth century German 

priest and writer, who was a strange mixture of scientist, mystic, and 

quack. 
In pace requiescat (Latin). May he rest in peace, 
insignium. Here and elsewhere Poe uses this word to mean symbol or 

device, not realizing that the singular of the Latin insignia is insigne. 
intriguant (French). Intriguer. 

Kircher, Athanasius (i 602-1 680). A German Jesuit who wrote on mathe- 
matics, physics, and philosophy. 
La Bruyere, Jean de (1645-1696). A French moralist and character 

writer. 
La Chambre, Martin Cureau de (1594-1669). A French royal physician 

whose Chiromancie was published in 1653. 
La Salle, Antoine Chivalier Louis CoUinet (1775-1809). Napoleon's great 

cavalry leader in the Invasion of Spain, in 1808. 
Leda. The mother of Castor and Pollux who, according to Greek mythology, 

became the constellation of the Gemini, or Twins. 
Lethean. From Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in Hades. 
Liriodendron Tulipif era. The tulip tree, which som-etimes reaches a height 

of 150-200 ft. 
LuUy, Raymond (1235-1315). A Spanish author, mystic, and missionary 

to the Mohammedans. 



214 poe's poems and tales 

Luxor. A village in upper Egypt built on the site of ancient Thebes and 

containing some of its ruins. 
Lyra. A Northern constellation of twenty-one stars which outline a lyre or 

harp. 
Machiavelli, Niccolo (1469-15 2 7). An Italian diplomat and author. 

His Beljagor is a satire on marriage. 
Mare Tenebrarum (Latin). The sea of darkness. For the ancients, the 

unexplored Atlantic. 
Medoc. A red French wine, mellow and delicately flavored. 
Mela, Pomponius. A Roman geographer of the first century. He used 

the epithet ^gipans to describe a goat-like race of beings in Africa, 
monstrum horrendum (Latin). A frightful monster. From Virgil's 

Mneid, iii, 658. 
Nemo me inpune lacessit (Latin). No one wrongs me with impunity. 
Nepenthe. A potion used by the ancients to deaden pain or sorrow. Hence, 

anything causing oblivion. 
Nil sapientiae, etc. (Latin). To wisdom nothing is more offensive than 

over shrewdness. 
non distributio medii (Latin). A term used in logic meaning " the undis- 
tributed middle." See The Century Dictionary imder " fallacy." 
Norway mile. Nearly five EngUsh miles. 
Nubian geographer. Possibly the geographer Claudius Ptolemy, who 

lived in the second century A. D., though there is no proof that he was 

a Nubian. 
(Edipus. In Greek mythology the Theban king who solved the riddle of 

the Sphinx. 
Oinos (Greek). Wine. 

Pallas. Pallas Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom. 
palazzo (Italian). A palace; a nobleman's private residence. 
par excellence (French). Preeminently. 
Peccavimus (Latin). We have sinned. 
Percival, Dr. James Gates (1795-1856). A popular. American scientist 

and a mediocre poet. 
Phlegethon. A " burning " or fiery river of Hades. 
Plutonian. Pluto was the god of the dark, mysterious underworld. 
Pomponius Mela. See Mela. 

Porphyrogene (Greek). " Bom to the purple," — i.e. of royal descent. 
Procrustes. " The Stretcher." A fabled Greek robber who fitted his 

victims to a bed by stretching them or by lopping off their limbs. 
proper. Used in the earlier sense of personal or own. 
Psyche (Greek). The soul; here, as frequently, personified. 
Ptolemais. Five cities in the ancient world bore this name. Poe may have 

had one of these definitely in mind, but probably he here uses the name 

to enforce his suggestion of an old " dim city." 
Ramus, Jonas (1649-1718). Norwegian priest and author. 
recherche (French). Secret, hidden, carefully planned. 
regulus. The mass of metal gathering beneath the slag in smelting. 
religio (Latin). Ceremoniousness, punctiHousness. 



I 



GLOSSARY 215 

Rochefoucauld, Francois de la (1613-1680). A French moralist and 

author of maxims. 
roquelaure. A cloak for men, popular m the eighteenth century, and taking 

its name from the Duke of Roquelaure. 
Rue Morgue, etc. Referring to Poe's tales, The Murders in the Rue Morgue 

and The Mystery of Marie Roget. 
Runic. From rune, the written characters of the old languages of north- 
ern Europe; here, a dark, mystic song. 
Saturnian lead. Those born under the influence of Saturn were beUeved 

by astrologers to be stupid and dull and heavy like lead, 
scarabaeus (Latin). A beetle. 

scarabaeus caput hominis (Latin). Man's-head beetle. 
Schiraz or Shiraz. A Persian city where the poet Hafiz (fourteenth century) 

was born and buried. 
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. A Latin philosopher and dramatist, tutor to 

Nero. 
Sexagesima Sunday. The second Sunday before Lent. 
Sherry. An amber-colored, dry Spanish wine. 

solus (Latin). Alone. . . 

son coeur, etc. (French). " His heart is a suspended lute; as soon as it is 
touched, it resounds." Professor F. C. Prescott has recently found this 
in Ber anger's Le Rufus. 
Spallanzani, Lazaro (1729-1799)- An Italian traveler and writer. 
Spanish Main. The seas to the northeast of South America, which in 

fiction have been the stock resort of pirates. 
Sub conservatione, etc. (Latin). With the preservation of a characteristic 

form, the soul is secure. 
Swammerdam, Jan (165 7-1680). A noted Dutch naturalist. 
Swedenborg, Emanuel (1688-177 2). The celebrated Swedish mystic and 

theologian. 
Teios, properly Teas. See Anacreon. 

Tieck, Ludwig (1773-1853). One of the greatest of the nineteenth century 
German romanticists who may have influenced Poe's writings._ Poe 
here uses the sub-title of Tieck's volume: Das Alte Buch; oder Reise ins 
Blaue hinein. 
Ultima Thule. The name given by the Romans to the northernmost in- 
habited lands; hence, anything far distant, remote. 
Un dessein si funeste, etc. (French). "So baleful a design, if unworthy 
of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes." For the vengeance Atreus wreaked 
on Thyestes, see Gayley's Classic Myths. 
Verulam, Lord. See Bacon. 
VigiUae Mortuorum, etc. (Latin). " Vigils for the Dead as rendered by the 

Choir of the Church at Mayence." Probably Poe's own invention, 
virtuoso. Skillful in, or having a taste for, the fine arts, 
vis inertiae (Latin). Power of inertia. 

Watson, Richard (1737-1816). A superficial but popular writer on chem- 
istry; made Bishop of Llandafi in 1782. 



2i6 poe's poems and tales 

Weber, Baron Karl M.F.E. von (1786-1826). A famous German musical 

composer and conductor. 
Zaffre. An impure cobalt oxide, used in making pigments and in producing 

a blue enamel on pottery. 
Zoilus. A name to-day associated with an infamous Greek critic; not very 

appropriately used here. 



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